


Caffeine, Conspiracies, and the Fortean Nature of Fishes

by daoniesidhe



Series: The Black Mailbox Stories [8]
Category: The Lone Gunmen (TV), The X-Files
Genre: Conspiracy Theories, Crazy, Cryptids, Dirty Talk, Fringe Journalism, Gratuitous Smut, Humor, M/M, Multi, Phone Sex, Poor Plotting, Road Trip, Slapstick-Style Violence, UFOs, Weird Things Keep Happening, x-files
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-31
Updated: 2018-05-18
Packaged: 2018-10-13 08:48:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 113,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10510368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daoniesidhe/pseuds/daoniesidhe
Summary: The Gunmen get a visitor who leads them on a UFO road trip. In part one, Sir Tedious Exposition and his Essentially-Well-Intentioned Boring-But-Unfortunately-Necessary Painfully-Stupid-Question Dance Company put on an incomprehensibly dull show. With some entirely gratuitous sex thrown in just to get people to read it.Now Featuring Chapter 12!





	1. This Island Maury

**Author's Note:**

> This is a Black Mailbox story, set after Weekend in the Heartland, with many of the same OCs and made-up media outlets. If you haven't read that and John, I'm Only Dancing, parts of this might not make much sense, or at least you might miss some jokes. I started writing this at least ten years ago, which will show. It's finished up to part 12. It may never get finished, but insofar as it was always meant to end happily, with basically everything back to normal, that may not matter. While it is at this time unfinished, each chapter is a day, and there are no cliffhangers. I'm posting the finished pieces here mostly because my own home page has been disappeared for now. I've made a few changes, and my very long chapter notes have been spectacularly truncated so assume I own nothing and am responsible for any mistakes. Assume also that I'm very sorry to everyone I've exploited or offended, which is pretty much everyone.
> 
> Relevant Denial: I'm pretending most of the later episodes of LGM haven't happened, or haven't happened yet, and most of the later episodes of X-Files, as well as the mytharc episodes, never will. Anything incongruous is basically just there for a joke. It's all basically there for a joke.

The door buzzed, early on Thursday evening, and Frohike went to get it. He checked the video feed first, and was surprised by what he saw. A young man, not much more than mid-twenties, stood nervously, glancing up at the camera. Maybe five-seven, five-eight, slim, with light brown hair cut short and blow-dried, soft brown eyes, and a stylish suit that didn't quite seem to fit, even though it had clearly been tailored. Frohike grinned and opened the door.

The young man stood there, smiling hesitantly. "Mel, hi... I was in the area, and I took a chance..."

Frohike pounded him on the back. "J. Wayne, how the hell are you? What brings you here?" He grabbed J. Wayne's arm and dragged him inside, closing the door behind him. "Just a second, kid."

J. Wayne watched in fascination as Frohike relocked the door. Frohike heard him counting them under his breath and grinned. "Follow me. The guys'll be glad to meet you." He headed upstairs, giving the visitor barely a chance to look around--not that there was anything to be seen in the gloom of the office areas with all the lights out. "Everybody's upstairs. I'll give you the twopenny tour later. What the hell are you doing out here, J. Wayne?"

"I was in the area," J. Wayne said again, "and you and John both said..."

"Right, right," Frohike laughed. "You're Mr. Spontaneity, aren't you. That's fine, we'll drag it out of you. I can test that homemade truth serum."

"Homemade truth serum?" J. Wayne sounded unnerved.

Frohike snickered. "Okay, no, but I can always let Langly cook you dinner. Take a stronger man than you to withstand that. Why're you really here?" he asked, leading the way to the living area where Langly, Byers, and Jimmy were watching _Get Smart_. Byers looked relieved at the interruption, and Frohike stifled the smirk.

"Hey, look who's here!" he said cheerfully.

The three of them inspected J. Wayne. Finally, Langly said, "Who?"

"Boys, this is J. Wayne Arthur, the Third. J. Wayne, the guys." He gestured. "Ringo Langly, Jimmy Bond, John Byers."

Byers stood and offered his hand. "This is a surprise. It's nice to finally meet you, Wayne."

Langly leaned forward and offered his own hand, possibly as a ploy to distract J. Wayne from Byers. Frohike managed not to snicker. "Langly. Hi, J. Wayne. What are you doing in town?"

"I was just about to pry that out of him," Frohike said. "Have a seat, kid, and tell us what brings you here."

"A story," J. Wayne said, a little nervously. "One I'm hoping you can help with."

Langly shot him a look. "Did Yves put you up to this?" he demanded suspiciously. He'd quickly taken a serious dislike to the young man.

"Who's Yves?"

Frohike waved it off. "Tell us what you got."

"Well," J. Wayne said, trying to organize his story for maximum persuasion, "It started about three weeks ago. Zev, my editor--" 

"Zev Allansu," Frohike put in. 

"That prick's involved in this?" Byers put his hand inconspicuously on Langly's arm, silencing him.

"Sort of," J. Wayne offered. "He dropped a story on me, a phone message from a man in Seattle. At first it looked like a routine UFO sighting--"

"Why would that interest _Powder Keg_?" Langly asked belligerently. "UFO sightings are a dime a dozen."

J. Wayne colored slightly. "Zev and I, uh, we don't work well together. It was a fish file."

"What's a fish file?" Jimmy asked.

"Busy work," Frohike told him. "A story that stinks to high heaven."

"Oh."

"Right. He's been giving me fish files all along," he looked at Frohike, "like the Indiana conference. Mostly tabloid stuff. Possessed microwaves, ghost cars, and UFO sightings. First kind or lower," he clarified. "No trace, no occupants."

Byers made a small sympathetic noise. Langly came close to growling. Frohike tried not to laugh, and J. Wayne edged away a bit. 

"But this one was a little different. A Seattle resident named Joe Rickson reported a sighting of a craft over Maury Island," he continued. Frohike took a breath, and Byers blinked. "Yeah, it, uh, rang a bell. I remembered some of the things Pete, you remember Pete Dodden, Mel?" Frohike nodded. "So I remembered some of what he said about that, and I started digging. Then I called Rickson, and he said he wouldn't talk about it. So I asked why he called in the first place, and he swore he didn't. So I dropped it." He shrugged. "And Zev docked me for the long-distance."

Frohike snorted. "Asshole."

"I don't get it," Jimmy began.

Langly interrupted him. "I hate to agree with him, but I don't get it either. If there's nothing _there_ , why are you _here_?" From his tone, it was fairly obvious where Langly would have preferred J. Wayne.

"About a week later, Rickson called me back, at about three in the morning. At home," he explained.

"You gave him your home number?" Langly was incredulous. "I thought this guy was supposed to be smart," he sneered. Byers' grip on his arm tightened slightly, and he shut up.

"No, I didn't. I really didn't. And it's not listed, so I don't know how he got it," J. Wayne said earnestly. "I asked him, but he was drunk. I mean, really drunk. And he kept talking about what he saw, and it was obvious he _did_ make the first call. But every couple of minutes, he'd say he couldn't talk about it, they told him not to talk about it."

"They," Frohike repeated carefully. 

J. Wayne pulled out a Palm Pilot and read from it. "Three men, almost identical. They were all wearing black suits with sunglasses--at night--and, 'really stupid hats'. This is what he told me, remember. They visited him the day after he made the call to _Powder Keg_. They knew all about his sighting. They didn't ask him about it, they _told_ him about it. He was very clear on that. And they told him about his call, too, and then they told him not to talk about it."

Langly had leaned forward, suddenly interested despite himself. "Maury Island's where..." he said.

Byers nodded. "The first Men in Black."

"Wait," Jimmy started. Frohike cut him off.

"Yeah, like the movie. Sort of."

"They're not exactly the same as in the movie, Jimmy," Byers said. "In the movie, the MIB were supposed to be protecting people from aliens. In the lore, they go around actually threatening people who see things, and telling them not to talk about... it. Whatever it was. They don't turn up in every UFO case," he went on. "Not even in most of them. And the first report of MIB was from Washington State, in the Maury Island case."

Frohike took up the narrative. "A guy named, what was it, Byers?"

"Harold Dahl," J. Wayne said.

"Right. Dahl. He was Coast Guard or something like that,"

"Harbor patrolman," J. Wayne offered.

"Okay, thanks. He said one day he was out near Maury Island, which is in Puget Sound. And he saw six, I think it was," Byers and J. Wayne nodded, "toroidal--" he looked at Jimmy's expression and clarified, "--donut-shaped UFOs. One of them was hovering very close to the water, and spewing pieces of metal, with the other five apparently trying to help. Allegedly a dog was killed by the slag, and a boy's arm was burned."

"The boy was Dahl's son," J. Wayne said. "No one has explained what he was doing out on the boat."

"Take Your Son To A UFO Sighting Day," Langly inserted, snickering.

J. Wayne almost laughed at that. "So Dahl went back and reported this to his supervisor, a man named Fred Lee Crisman."

"Crisman!" Langly snapped his fingers suddenly. "He was at Dealey Plaza."

Byers glanced at him. "Are you sure it was the same man?"

Langly shrugged. "Has to be, right? The Torbitt Document names Fred Lee Crisman as one of the tramps at the railyard. The New Orleans District Attorney subpoenaed him. Called him an anti-Castro fanatic."

Byers cocked his head to one side. "Did he testify?"

"Nope. There were rumors he was a CIA asset."

Frohike sighed. " _Everyone_ was a CIA asset if you listened to the rumors, Langly."

"Garrison said he was," Langly protested.

This silenced them for a few moments. Then Jimmy said, "Who's Garrison?"

"The New Orleans District Attorney who investigated the Kennedy assassination," Frohike explained.

"What about that Warren guy?"

"That was later," Langly said. "Except," he paused, uncertain. "Crisman wasn't harbor patrol. He was a radio host. And a preacher, I think."

Byers shook his head. "It can't be the same man."

"It was the same name." Langly stood up and headed for the nearest computer. "Let's find out."

"The Maury Island Crisman was a Hollow-Earther," J. Wayne observed. "He wrote to _Amazing Stories_ , saying he'd fought Deros."

"Isn't _Amazing Stories_ a movie?" Jimmy was totally lost now.

"Yeah, it was," Frohike said. "But first it was a science fiction magazine. The _first_ science fiction magazine. The publisher was into UFOs. Fortean phenomena." He glanced at Jimmy. "Like, rains of fish, okay?"

Jimmy nodded, shook his head, nodded again, and finally shrugged. "I guess."

"Crisman was part of the Shaver Mystery?" Byers asked J. Wayne.

"After the fact," Frohike said thoughtfully. "He wrote a letter telling Palmer to drop it, it wasn't safe."

"Shaver was a nutbar," Langly put in. "Heard voices, saw aliens, got committed, the whole deal. Everybody was out to get him, he said."

"Yeah, but that sounds--" 

Frohike tried to cut Jimmy off. "Don't say it, okay?"

"--like Agent Mulder," Jimmy finished.

Langly snickered, and even Byers had to hide a smile.

"Yeah, okay," Langly said, finally, "but Shaver said his aliens were intraterrestrial robots. And he also said he came up with the Theory of Relativity before Einstein, and invented lasers."

"He didn't say he invented them," J. Wayne corrected him, earning further enmity. "He said the Deros showed them to him."

"Deros," Byers sighed. "I'm not sure we want to start that again. The community barely recovered its credibility the first time around."

"If it's a story, it's a story," Frohike told him firmly.

Langly turned around and fixed J. Wayne with the hairy eyeball. "I haven't heard a story yet, though. All I've heard is a crank call and a bunch of paranoia campfire stories."

"Shut up, Punk-Ass," Frohike snapped. He turned back to J. Wayne. "Bring it home, kid. Where's the meat on this bone?"

J. Wayne took something out of his inside suit pocket and leaned forward to lay it on the table. A stack of photographs.

"A couple of days after Rickson called me, I got an email from a Marcus Payter, in Tacoma. He described the same thing Rickson did, and he got pictures."

"Dahl had pictures," Langly said cynically.

"These came out," Byers said, picking them up. "Did he send you the negatives?"

J. Wayne handed him a small envelope. Byers passed it to Frohike. "See what you can do with these? These are good pictures. My initial impression is that they're not going to be easily explained away." He flipped through them and passed them to Frohike.

"Holy cow," he said, eyebrows raised. "These look good, really good."

"You ever see _V_?" Langly wanted to know.

"The show with the lizard aliens?" Jimmy asked.

"Yeah. They had footage of spacecraft _moving_ , right? That looked pretty good too."

Jimmy yelped and bolted to his feet. "Those lizard guys are _real_?"

While everyone's heart rate went back to normal, Langly turned around and thumped his head on the desk. "No, Jimmy," came his muffled voice. "That's not what I meant. I was making a point."

"Just not a very clear one," Byers said, trying not to laugh.

"Oh," Jimmy sat down sheepishly.

The computer beeped. Langly glanced up and did a classic double take. "It's the same guy."

They were silent for a moment. Then Frohike said, "Doesn't surprise me."

Byers looked at him. "Doesn't it? It's quite a coincidence."

He shrugged. "I bet if you looked, he'd be Bay of Pigs, too."

Langly shrugged this time. "No bet. He's mentioned in the anonymous1968 OCC 'Bay of Pigs' letter to Garrison. There's a rumor he was Majestic12, too."

"MJ12 is a pile of crap," Frohike said dismissively.

"Mulder believes it," Langly snickered.

"Mulder's paranoid." Nobody bothered to comment on _that_.

"He was Riconoscuito's father's business partner," Langly offered, still reading.

Byers stared. "Wackenhut-Cabazon?"

"Yeah. That was connected with Reagan, right?"

"And Meese," Frohike observed. "And Wackenhut provides security for Area 51."

"Not to mention the Paperclip technology they were given," Byers added.

"Jesus. It looks like Crisman's into everything." Frohike stood up and walked over to Langly, laying the pictures out beside the keyboard like they were a royal flush.

"Damn, man." He picked up the first one and studied it closely. "These do look good."

Each of the four pictures showed a boomerang craft, in grays and blacks, with blue lights. The pictures were taken at dusk or dawn, evidently one after the other, showing the progression of the object across the sky. In each picture, trees could be seen, and above the craft was a formation of lenticular clouds. The craft was slightly blurry, due to what Langly assumed was the exposure time, while everything else in the frame was sharp. Either the pictures had been snapped several seconds apart, or the object was moving very fast.

Langly looked up. "No trace?"

J. Wayne shook his head. "Not from that."

They all turned to stare at him. "From what?" Frohike asked eventually.

J. Wayne reached into his briefcase and took out an oblong piece of grayish-white metal about the size of a pack of cards. It had irregular edges, looking charred and partially melted in some places. He set it on the table. Frohike reached out to touch it.

"Keep it away from the negatives. It fogs film."

Frohike dropped it and pulled his hand away like he'd been burned. "Radiation?"

"It's not dangerous." J. Wayne shook his head. "I carried it with me from Michigan, remember."

"Oh, _that_ was bright," Langly said caustically. 

Frohike disappeared through a door for a moment. They heard him rummaging in a drawer, and he returned with an object that looked a lot like a large radio remote control for a toy truck or boat. He flipped a switch and held it over the metal. It clicked, once, dispiritedly, and fell silent. Frohike checked the dials. "Normal radiation levels. Why does it fog film?"

J. Wayne shook his head again. "No idea."

Byers cleared his throat. "Where did it come from?"

"Payter sent it to me. The guy who took the photos," he clarified. "He sent them separately, about a week ago. He said the metal was from a pile on Maury."

Byers gazed at the metal for a moment. "Hanford. There's a theory that Dahl stumbled across an illegal dumping ground of radioactive waste from Hanford."

"Yeah, Keel's theory," Langly said disparagingly.

Frohike patted his Geiger counter. "This little baby'd be singing." As if in response, it let out another forlorn-sounding click.

"Are you sure that thing still works?" Langly asked.

"Yeah," Frohike snapped. "I test it on your cooking every month."

Jimmy giggled, and Byers held out his hands for peace. "I think we're getting ahead of ourselves here. There was also a mining operation on Maury, still is. In fact, they're looking to expand it, the press release from Deep Impacts just crossed my desk a couple of weeks ago. Couldn't this be from that?"

"It doesn't seem likely," J. Wayne said. "It broke two diamond blades while a friend of mine was trying to get a sample for the NMR. It looks like it's been burned, and torn, and melted, but we couldn't even make a dent in its surface. We still don't really know what it's made of."

There was a silence while they considered that. Then Byers said, "Are you certain it's an artifact?"

J. Wayne shook his head again. "Not certain, no."

"Could it just be anomalous slag?"

J. Wayne shrugged. "It could be six ballerinas on a pink circus pony for all I've been able to find out."

"I think we can rule that out," Byers said with a straight face. "It wouldn't fit on our table."

Langly stood abruptly, clearly irritated. "I need a Jolt." He stalked out the door Frohike had used earlier.

Byers raised an eyebrow at Frohike as J. Wayne cleared his throat. "You keep a Geiger counter in your kitchen?"

Frohike laughed. "Where do you keep yours?"

Byers stood, too, and gestured. "I think we could use some dinner."

J. Wayne tried to hide his alarm, and Byers smiled. "Mel's cooking."

"I heard that!" came an outraged complaint from the kitchen.

"Good for you!" Frohike hollered back.

They gathered around the kitchen table, and Frohike started rummaging through cupboards. "Still vegetarian, J. Wayne?"

"Yes."

"We'll find you something."

"Thank you. How is Agent Mulder?"

Mel gave him a fast glance. "He's fine. About the usual." He grinned. "I'm sure he'd like to see you while you're in town."

J. Wayne blushed slightly and Byers and Frohike exchanged amused looks.

Jimmy, who had been working through something for several minutes, spoke up. "I got a question."

Byers steeled himself. "Yes, Jimmy?"

Jimmy looked at J. Wayne. "So are you Jay, or Wayne, or Arthur, or what?"

J. Wayne grimaced. "Just call me Wayne."

Jimmy nodded, obviously still confused. "So you've got, like, three first names."

J. Wayne choked down the "James Bond" joke, everyone saw it in his face. 

Byers hid a grin, admiring the young man's restraint. "So what did you need our help with, exactly?"

"I was hoping you could help me find out what's going on."

"That's pretty vague," Langly complained. "You want us to hunt down the Meaning of Life for you, too?"

"The pictures are only part of it," J. Wayne said calmly. "I did some digging. They're seeing at least three types of boomerang-shaped UFOs, or at least light formations, out there. One of the sightings in the daytime was of a 'pie-piece' type of craft. There's also apparently a formation of lights that turns up at night that's been described as outlining a equilateral triangle. And then the boomerang, in the pictures. The reports are very specific. They're not flying saucers."

"Saucers are rare," Frohike said. "The wedge sightings have gotten a lot more common in the last two decades. Since eighty-four, actually."

"Hudson Valley," Byers commented.

"Yeah. We're working on a story... Well. The wedges may be something completely different. Something--worse, maybe."

"Something more foreign to our understanding, in any event," Byers suggested.

J. Wayne nodded. "They're seeing other things out there. Besides the crafts and the MIB. Freak storms, lightning displays without any type of weather that would explain it. Abductions have been reported, and missing time. An investigator for _Underground_ is out there, and he's seeing somatic effects and irradiated objects, including film. And," he added, a little embarrassed, "cattle mutilations."

Byers thought it over. "That's... very interesting. All of this in Washington State?"

"Nearly all of it in and around the Seattle/Tacoma area." He paused. "You're doing an Eldridge story?"

Frohike grinned. "You've done your homework."

"It is interesting. And I wanted to know if it was worth bothering you with."

Frohike leaned against the counter. "Well, J. Wayne. This looks pretty solid to me. After dinner, we'll check your photos, see what we can do with your negatives. You can tell us exactly what you've done already, so we don't end up duplicating your efforts. Then Langly'll hit the computers, and Byers'll take the trace, and we'll see what we can find out."

"What do I do?" Jimmy asked eagerly.

"Get in the way and ask stupid questions, usually."

"C'mon, guys, I can help."

"You can help me with the metal, Jimmy," Byers said. "I still don't understand, J. Wayne. Why us? Is _Powder Keg_ really going to just ignore this?"

"No, they're not. Zev already sent someone out there."

Byers raised an eyebrow. "Why did you come to us?"

"I, uh, don't work for them anymore."

Frohike blinked. "You quit?"

"Yeah."

"What happened?"

"Personality conflict."

They all waited for a few moments, and then Frohike said, "Spill it, kid."

"He cut several of my stories," J. Wayne admitted.

"Big deal," Langly said.

"That's it?" Byers asked, a little surprised.

"Yes. I mean, no. I mean, that's all he did, really. But… That's not why I quit. Not _just_ because he cut them. He sent me on at least four stories where this happened..."

Frohike sighed. "Just say it, already."

"I'd go out, and find something, something important, and he'd use it, for money."

"How?"

"I uncovered evidence that Pokemon digital watches cause violent impulses in males who take a specific combination of anti-depressants and over-the-counter cold pills. The drug company paid Zev to cover it up."

Langly leaned forward. "You got documentation on this?"

"Yes."

"Solid?"

"Yes. I brought the docs along." He sighed. "Since I seem to be freelancing now."

Frohike grinned. "Came to the right place. We'd love to scoop _Powder Keg_. You show us what you got, and we'll run with it."

"Thanks, Mel. It's important. But it's only one of the stories he did this on. He'd send me digging up stuff and then shop me. I also uncovered audio tapes of a Lansing hypnotherapist programming his patients to vote republican."

"The therapist paid Zev?" Frohike asked.

"Yeah."

"Okay, so Zev was selling you out. What'd you do?"

"Oh, I uh..." J. Wayne looked embarrassed. "I faked a story. I got a guy I know to go along with me--I did a story like he was a war criminal, okay?"

"He fell for that?" Langly demanded incredulously.

"Zev is not the brightest star in the heavens," Frohike reminded him.

"Well, it had to be something I could control. And something I could disprove, in case it escaped. I didn't want to just start rumors."

Byers nodded. "That's really quite clever."

Langly made another noise that was close to a growl, and J. Wayne edged even farther from him. This time Frohike just sighed.

"So Zev tried to blackmail your friend?" he asked.

J. Wayne nodded. "And we got it on tape."

"What'd you do with the tape?"

J. Wayne's face fell. "I took it to the Tech ed, and he treated it like a joke."

Byers made a sympathetic noise, and Langly nearly snarled. "Do you have the tape?" Byers asked.

"Yes."

Frohike grinned in unholy glee. "That's even better than scooping _Powder Keg_. Boys, let's get Zev canned."

The option seemed attractive even to Langly, who stopped glowering briefly. "That prick deserves it."

"So you quit?" Byers asked.

"Yeah. Obviously I couldn't have kept working under Zev. So, I'm between jobs, and I thought I'd see..."

Langly glared at him. "So we help you get the story, and you use it to get you a job somewhere?"

"Uh, no. Not quite like that. I mean, I... Look, I don't need a new job right away. I mean, obviously getting this story would help me get on with a group, but..." He shrugged. "I'm hoping if it's a good story, you'll print it. If you give me a credit, and if it's a good story, that's only fair, right? Then I can take that with me when I'm interviewing."

Frohike nodded. "Seems fair enough. We get a story, you get a job. Everybody wins."

"Thanks, Mel."

**

The party broke up around two AM, with J. Wayne headed back to his hotel, leaving his cell phone number, his trace and his photos. Frohike's preliminary conclusion was that the photos were legit, and Byers had gotten nowhere with the metal. Langly had spent several hours listing everything Crisman seemed to be connected with, and organizing it into layers according to how directly he was involved, and how reliable the source material was. The chart had shocked even Frohike. Jimmy kept the coffee flowing, and flow it did, like the Mighty Mississip. The line between paranoia and caffeination was often blurred at two in the morning.

"'Night, guys!" Jimmy headed for his room, still wired.

"G'night, boys," Frohike said, yawning.

"See ya in the morning." Langly pulled the door shut and leaned against it, arms across his chest. 

Byers hung his jacket neatly on the single wooden hanger in Langly's closet, and turned around. "What?"

Langly shook his head. "Haven't seen you this excited in a long time, John."

Byers nearly grinned. "This could be it, Ri. This one... feels big. The MIB, Arnold, Palmer. JFK, Bay of Pigs. Paperclip, Area 51. God, it all goes back to Crisman. This is--" he stopped, trying not to get carried away. "It could be big."

Langly wandered over and put his arms around Byers. "Big, huh?" he half-whispered. "How big?"

Byers sighed. "Puns again."

"That's plan B. Wanna guess what plan A is?"

Byers leaned into him. "Is it bigger than a breadbox?"

Langly sighed. "You sure know how to give a guy an inferiority complex."

Byers laughed and turned around. "Okay, so is it... animal, vegetable, or mineral?"

"Is this Twenty Questions?"

"Well?"

"Animal. Definitely animal." Langly growled a bit, setting them both laughing.

"Two down," Byers suggested, as Langly played with his tie.

"Is that a guess?"

"No... Just saying." Fingers slipped inside his shirt and he shivered. "Does it involve taking off our clothes?"

"You're good at this," Langly smiled, starting on John's buttons.

"Practice. Does it involve a bed?"

"Only if we get there soon."

Byers chuckled. "How many questions is that?"

"I lost track. I'm getting you a clip-on tie for your birthday."

John brushed his hands away and undid the knot on his own. "Stop being so impatient. I've got another sixteen questions."

Langly sighed melodramatically. "Okay."

"How many people does it take?"

"Foul ball."

Byers laughed. "Just trying to narrow it down."

"This is taking forever. Let's play Truth-or-Dare instead."

Langly was undoing his belt, fingers lingering too long--not long enough--stealing his concentration, but he rallied. "No way. I remember last time."

"So do I," Langly grinned. 

"Does it involve... tongues?"

"Mm," Langly said hungrily. "God, I hope so."

"Is it hot?" he asked, as Langly slid down his body, taking his trousers with him to the floor.

"Very."

"And wet?"

Langly leaned in and scrubbed his stubble lightly across John's belly. "Oh yeah."

"And does it--"

Langly looked up, annoyed. "Johnny. Right now, at this minute, of all the _possible_ things that I _could_ be doing with my mouth, are you sure that you want me to _answer questions_?"

Byers leaned against the wall, laughing a little. "Are you calling a time out?"

"No. I'm hoping you'll forfeit."

"But I'm so close to getting it."

"So'm'I."

"This could be a lot bigger than we think," Byers said thoughtfully.

"It is," Langly informed him.

"No... The story. Wackenhut is into everything."

"Focus, John."

"I am. Do you remember the rumor about Wackenhut and Vince Foster?"

Langly sighed. "Not at this precise minute, no. Are you gonna keep this up? Should Fro and I fix you up with Mulder? You two can take your clothes off and argue the finer points of conspiracy theory all night."

Byers laughed. "Sorry."

"You should be. Focus, okay?"

"Mmm. Oh, wow."

Langly stopped and stared up at him. "'Oh, wow'?"

"Ohhhh yeah. Wow."

"What the hell has gotten into you, John?"

"Nothing, yet."

Langly slumped to the floor, laughing helplessly. "I give up."

John sighed and joined him. "Sorry," he chuckled.

Langly shook his head, too far gone for words.

John put his arms around him, grinning. "You don't usually give up this easily, though."

Langly rested his head against John's chest, gasping for breath. "You're... not usually... this _weird_."

Byers glanced down and realized there was an ear conveniently within reach. "Sorry. It's just this story... It could be everything." He ran his tongue over the outside of Langly's ear. "Almost everything," he amended as Langly leaned into him. "Or not." Langly's hand moved across to one nipple. "In fact," John shuddered, "really very little. Oh, God."

"You think you can focus now?"

"Oh, God."

"Is that a yes?"

"Oh, God," he moaned again as Langly's hands did things to him that could have been their own X-File. When Langly pulled them away, he was ready to commit homicide. "Ri!"

"I didn't hear a yes."

"Yes, whatever, anything, God, yes, okay?"

Langly laughed. "That was coherent."

"I really hate you sometimes."

"C'mon," Langly said, helping him to his feet. "If we do this here, you're gonna bitch about bruised knees again."

Byers flopped bonelessly on the bed. "Take your clothes off," he said softly.

Langly grinned. "You want a show, Johnny?"

The older man propped his head on one hand, eyes bright. "Mmm. Let's see what you've got."

"You've forgotten already?" Langly sulked.

"Knock it off. You're not Mulder, and The Pout doesn't work on me."

Langly played with the hem of his t-shirt. "It was a sulk. And it sure as hell does work on you."

"You're stalling," Byers accused.

"Some music might help." Langly grinned and went over to the stereo. Seconds later...  
"It landed in a field in Idaho  
Where it came from, I don't know  
It did not look like it came from Japan  
And out of the dark walked a strange man…"

Byers sighed. "'Zero Zero UFO'. I should have expected that."

Langly laughed. "You've been listening to my Ramones CDs?"

"Ri, when you listen to your Ramones CDs, people _across town_ hear them."

Langly snapped his fingers. "Mood lighting." He plugged in his lava lamp, while Byers sighed in resignation. 

"This had better be some show, Ringo."

Langly turned out the overhead light. "I gotta get a mirrored ball in here. Or a blacklight or something."

Byers stood up. "That's it. I'm going to my room, where it's sane."

Langly pushed him back on the bed, hands everywhere, and started singing against various bits of John's anatomy. "'You may be right/ I may be crazy/ But it just may be a lunatic you're looking for--'"

Byers pulled a pillow over his head. "Can you try to be insane to one song at a time, please?" he said plaintively.

"Okay. I can do that." Langly pulled the pillow off his face and began to slip his t-shirt up, a little at a time, giving John glimpses of lean flesh. "'A million miles from the Milky Way/ A hundred years, a month and a day/ Zero Zero UFO... Zero Zero UFO...'"

Langly twisted around to the beat and showed off a little shoulder, immediately flipping his hair over it and turning around to run his tongue along his own finger at John, who was reduced to helpless laughter.

Langly managed to wriggle half out of his shirt even with--Byers was almost positive--both hands on John. The lighting wasn't really conducive to close observation. And neither was John's less-than-dispassionate state.

Langly half-stood as the song started over again, and flipped his shirt over his head. With one hand, he pulled it off and blew John a kiss as he draped the shirt over him. He toed off a shoe and scooped it up, singing into it like a microphone. "'Zero Zero... UFO...'" The other shoe followed, smacking against a wall. "'Spaceship travels at the speed of light...'" One sock at a time, stuffed down the front of John's trousers with a casual grope. And then the tight jeans, good God. Byers watched as closely as he could, dying to see how the younger man would get out of them. Langly kept dancing, wiggling his ass at John, and turning around to undo his fly, one agonizing button at a time, revealing only bare skin. John wasn't laughing all that much anymore, and Langly was clearly enjoying it. "'Zero Zero... UFO...'"

Byers grinned and joined in. "'Out of the dark walked a strange man...'"

Langly laughed and slid a hand inside his own jeans, stroking himself as he started to shake the jeans off. Byers rolled over for a better view. Langly half-leaned against the wall and peeled himself slowly out of the jeans. 

"Oh, wow," John breathed.

"You said it, baby."

"Ri... Come over here."

"What's the magic word?"

"Hard."

Langly blinked. "That'll do." He stepped out of his jeans and took the half-dozen steps to the bed at a pace that had John's heart in his throat.

"Jesus. Get over here. Please."

"Now who's impatient?" Langly chuckled.

"You're the one who wanted to play Truth-or-Dare."

"Truth or Dare, Johnny." The rasp in his voice went straight down John's spine, and he'd abruptly had enough of the games.

"Ringo. _Please_."

"Are you forfeiting?"

Byers was close to screaming in frustration. "Ringo, if you don't put your hands on me right now--"

Oh, and there they were, burning his flesh wherever they touched him--and they touched him everywhere. He was desperate, aching for it, aching with it. Even getting what he wanted, needed, didn't do anything to soothe him. Then Langly's mouth was on him, and holy heaven, there was never anything like this.

"Fuck, Johnny, I love it when you make those noises," Langly hissed into the hollow of his hip. 

John moaned incoherently, lost in sensations... teeth grazing the skin over his ribs... long fingers in his ass... constant mutters of encouragement... By the time Langly finally buried himself in John's heat, John was reduced to desperate whimpers. The tease had affected Langly too. He gave John barely a moment and then he was thrusting, hard and deep.

Byers had just enough presence of mind to bury his face in the pillows to partly muffle his shout when he came. And to almost entirely muffle the sound of Frohike, next door, who chose to highlight the moment in his own special way:

"Nine-point-four from the American judge!"

Langly finally pulled away, resting his head on John's shoulder. "Asshole," he managed, laughing. 

Byers winced. "My room next time. _My_ room, Ri."

"You think Jimmy can't hear you?" Langly asked, staggering to his feet and yanking a blanket around his waist.

"At least he doesn't offer commentary," Byers said grimly, as Langly headed into the hallway.

Langly opened the door and glared in at Frohike lying in bed, obviously enjoying the free entertainment. "Listen, Gnome, I don't care if you want to listen--"

"The way that boy is, I'd have to be deaf not to--" inserted Frohike tartly.

"--but keep it to yourself, or I'm showing Mulder your diary, got it?"

Frohike didn't stop laughing. "Just remember to turn the music off before you fall asleep this time, okay?"

Langly turned pink. "It was _one time_ , okay?"

"Yeah, I know. He _wore you out_. That's no excuse for three hours of Plastic Bertrand!" 

Langly grinned at a sudden thought. "If we're keeping you awake, we can take it downstairs."

"I booby-trapped my desk." 

"You're just jealous." He headed back to his room and found it empty. "Damn." He left the CD on, and made a rude gesture at the wall he shared with Frohike, before going on to John's room. He opened the door and caught a wet washcloth right in the face. He spat it out, laughing. "That's a helluva greeting, John."

Byers snickered. "I thought I'd pre-empt any witticisms on your part."

Langly grinned and sprawled lazily onto the bed beside his lover. "Just havin' some fun."

"You left the music on, didn't you."

Langly rolled over and nuzzled the beard. "He was asking for it."

Byers sighed and reached up to stroke the blond hair. "You really are a bad influence on me, you know that?"

"Somebody has to be," Langly said happily. "Next time, you get to strip."

"Not to the Ramones, I don't."

"You pick the music."

"I like Billie Holiday. 'There is nothing for me but to love you'," Byers sang softly, nearly giggling. "'Just the way you look tonight...'"

"A little slow. Marshall Artist? 'I Lose Control'?"

"I don't know that one. 'Nice Work if You Can Get It?"

Langly broke up. "Oh, man. 'Scruffy the Cat'. 'Beg, Borrow and Steal'."

"I don't know that one, either. How about Gilbert and Sullivan? 'When I sally forth to seek my prey/ I help myself in a royal way/ I sink a few more ships, it's true/ than a well-bred monarch ought to do...'"

"What's that?"

John kept singing. "'And it is, it is, a glorious thing/ to be a Pirate King.'"

Langly snickered. "'Three little maids from school are we/ Pert--'" Which was as far as he got before a pillow ended up in his face.

"You promised not to mention that again," John sulked.

"Sorry," Langly nudged him aside and laid claim to more than his share of the blankets. "Couldn't resist."

"Try harder," Byers advised him. "What was that one you were singing the other day?"

"Which one?"

"The one Jimmy was singing along with."

Langly grinned. "'27 Things I Wanna Do To You'? That's Screeching Weasel."

"Screeching Weasel," Byers repeated. "Sounds charming."

"You have no idea."

Byers considered it. "I can think of twenty-seven things."

"Sicko."

"Hey, you just did three of them."

"Only three? That must be some list."

"Number eighteen involves painting you with raspberry jelly and making you into my own personal peanut butter sandwich."

"Oh, man. What's number _nineteen_?"

"I'm too tired to even explain number nineteen."

Langly swallowed. "Oh, wow."

"You said it, baby."


	2. Flying Saucer Safari

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The shiniest UFOs you've ever seen are in Seattle, and the Grays the grayest gray in Seattle. . .

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Most of what's here isn't mine, either. Apologies to everyone else I'm offending and exploiting here. The Bobby Sherman lyric is parodied in the summary without permission, and the Suburban Lawns song used as the subtitle here is also without permission. Further parts are pending, so get your death threats in early and avoid the rush.
> 
> Spoilers: There's a brief allusion to "Diagnosis: Jimmy", but an actual spoiler for the Preston/Child novel _The Ice Limit_. Yeah, I don't know how that happened either.

J. Wayne turned up at ten Friday morning with a bag of muffins and fresh fruit. Byers cleared off one of the tables while Frohike and Jimmy dug up some orange juice and coffee. J. Wayne picked up a stack of folders only to have it snatched from him with a glare by Langly. 

"That's confidential."

Byers cast a puzzled glance at Langly, but didn't comment. He handed a folder to J. Wayne. "Your trace is very interesting."

J. Wayne sat down and started looking through the printouts. "Did you figure out what it is?"

"No." Byers half-smiled. "That's just one of several things I wasn't able to determine about it. If you'll look. . ." he leaned over the younger man's shoulder and flipped a page, "I calculated the mass and the weight, and couldn't match the density with any single element, or any common alloy. It's probably an unusual combination of several metals. With all the variations possible, I wasn't especially surprised by that. But I couldn't manage to sample it, either, and that did bother me, especially considering how lightweight it is."

J. Wayne nodded. "That's the same thing my friend told me."

"I even gave laser emissions spectroscopy a try. Nothing." Byers looked disappointed with the lack of results. "It does definitely fog film, however," he said. "What's even more interesting is that while I was working with it, my watch was disrupted."

"Disrupted?"

"It slowed down. I was working with it in close proximity for about an hour, and when I checked my watch, it was almost half an hour slow. So I did some experimentation, and it seems to distort time by a factor of two-point-something." He reached over and grabbed a peach, pulling out a penknife and slicing into it. He set half the peach on the table, and the other half on his desk, next to the piece of slag. "Watch."

"This is like watching paint dry, John," Langly said, irritated.

"Okay, don't watch. We'll check it again in ten minutes. In the meantime, let me show you what else I tried. . ."

A while later, Byers reached over and grabbed the half of the peach that he'd set by the metal, and put it next to the one he'd left on the table. The one on the table had started to turn brown, and the other one looked like it had when Byers had cut into it.

"Whoa," Langly said. "That's weird."

Frohike stared at the metal. "So if you carried it around with you, you'd age half as fast as everyone else?"

Byers shook his head. "It doesn't seem to work that way, actually. I haven't tested it on live cells yet. But it looks like it's not affecting the makeup of the cells themselves so much as it is affecting how they move through time."

"That's _really_ weird," Langly said.

"And only in a limited area," Byers went on. "The effect itself disappears abruptly somewhere between nine and ten inches from the metal. It's like there's an invisible line around it. At ten and a half inches, it's business as usual with watches, fruit, whatever. At eight inches, your watch moves half as fast as it should." He glanced at his hands. "It's possible that it's had some impact on the somatic cells of my arms and hands, but I'm not sure. Certainly I didn't _feel_ anything."

Frohike whistled. "That's no hunk of mining refuse."

Byers shook his head. "No, it's not."

Frohike shrugged. "So what the hell was it still doing lying around on Maury? Why wasn't it cleared away decades ago?"

Byers shook his head again. "I don't know."

J. Wayne had been silent for several minutes, and he finally spoke up. "There's another possibility that might explain the discrepancies you found in weight and mass. What if it's not a solid block of metal? Maybe there's something else inside it? A core of some other material?"

Langly scoffed at that. "That's not likely. I mean, it's part of something bigger. If it had a core of something else, it'd be visible."

Byers thought about that. "Maybe not. If this _isn't_ a piece of something larger."

"And the torn and melted edges?" Frohike asked.

"Well," Byers said slowly, "Maybe they're just that--edges. What if it's a piece of something not much larger?"

Jimmy shook his head, finally. "I don't get it."

Byers picked up a piece of plastic-coated cable that was sitting on Frohike's toolbox. He held the end of it out to Jimmy. "Can you see what color the wire is?"

"Sure. Copper."

"That's because this comes from something bigger, right? And you're looking at the end where it was cut." He turned it sideways. "Can you see the wire now?"

"No. It's inside the plastic."

"Right." Byers thought about it for a second, and dug through the box. He came up with a small tack and a chunk of putty. He wrapped the putty around the tack, and set it down. "All right, this is kind of a loose analogy, but this plumbers' putty should burn about as well as metal, which is to say, not well at all." He grabbed Frohike's lighter and held it to the edge of the putty. It charred and bubbled a little, but didn't burn. "Okay, Jimmy. Where's the tack?"

"It's, uh, still inside--Oh, I get it!" Jimmy beamed. "So you're saying maybe this thing is just melted around a couple of edges, not broken off of something."

"Exactly," Byers said with satisfaction. "So there could be something inside it. Of course," he said thoughtfully, "that makes it less likely to be a piece of wreckage than an object in itself. Something that's _supposed_ to look, more or less, like this."

Frohike leaned forward. "Hold on, Byers. Couldn't it just be honeycombed? Could the metal be reinforced with something?"

J. Wayne shook his head. "Why? The metal itself seems virtually indestructible, what would be the point of reinforcing it?"

"Something burned it. Edges or not," Langly said acerbically. "You may not be able to damage it, but _something_ did."

Byers rubbed his jaw. "He's got a point."

"Let's see if we can get a look at the inside of this little baby," Frohike said, standing up. "We can throw everything we got at it. Something's gotta work."

"Everything" ended up involving a highly concentrated beam of radioactive particles. "You're gonna wanna stand back," Frohike advised J. Wayne, grinning. "I'd love to tell you I'm positive I can contain the particles, but. . ."

Byers grimaced. "Stop trying to scare him. It's reasonably safe."

J. Wayne didn't look all that reassured.

The eventual conclusion was that there was most likely a density variation in the center of the block. Langly was unimpressed. "I thought we'd already decided that." 

Byers sighed. "Frohike, why don't you show J. Wayne what you found out about the pictures."

Frohike cheered up some. He dragged J. Wayne to his computer and offered a detailed explanation of his analysis. "Well, I don't know about your paperweight, but these pictures do seem to be the real deal. The negatives themselves are clean as Byers' bedroom. And as for the actual subject. . . The shadows and reflections fall right. The colors are what they should be. This object is actually in the sky, and I'd say at a distance of, oh, two hundred yards. You can see how it's bending the light around it, which you can do with a good computer and the right software, but   
that's not how it was done in this case." Frohike looked delighted. "I think I found Mulder's birthday present."

J. Wayne laughed. "With my compliments."

"So it's a real spaceship?" Jimmy asked.

Frohike sobered abruptly. "It's a real _something_. Experimental aircraft is most likely. I'm not gonna say it's a spaceship. We don't know that."

At some point in the afternoon, Byers swore loudly, suddenly, and stood up. Everyone watched him without comment as he found a can of spray paint and a discarded piece of plywood. He held a cloth over his nose and mouth and sprayed a thick three foot circle on the board. He picked up the metal, realizing he was being closely watched. 

"Oh. I, um, had an idea." He set the metal in the center of the circle. "You gave me an idea, Ringo, when you mentioned paint drying. So we'll find out where the boundary of the distortion is, by seeing where it dries faster."

J. Wayne nodded. "Ingenious."

Langly stalked silently from the room, and Frohike sighed.

Byers stared after him. "I don't know what's gotten into him."

Jimmy stifled a laugh, and Frohike rolled his eyes. "Maybe you should go talk to him."

Byers shook his head. "Later. I'm starting to get a very strange idea about this thing."

"Strange? About a piece of metal that fogs pictures and slows time? Go figure." Frohike shrugged and wandered back to his computer. "Have fun."

"Mel, where's the video camera?"

Frohike turned around and gazed at Byers. "You're going to make a _movie_ of paint drying?"

Byers shrugged, half-smiling. "It's science."

Frohike laughed. "Over by the radio equipment, last I looked. Knock yourself out."

"Thanks."

"If nothing else, this'll be a good bargaining chip the next time someone tries to show us vacation movies."

Byers grinned from behind a row of shelves. "We'll make a copy for Mulder. Class up his video collection."

Frohike laughed, gazing at J. Wayne. "Are you implying _Titstanic_ lacks class?"

Byers set up the camera, feigning shock. "He swore that one wasn't his." 

J. Wayne was trying very hard not to snicker. He glanced down at the paint and looked back up, startled. "John, what did you say the boundary was?"

Frohike came over to look. "Weirdness," he said.

Byers stared. "I'll say."

Jimmy looked at it a while, then shrugged. "Why? You said it was slower inside the circle."

"That's just it," Byers said, eyes never leaving the board. "It's a circle."

Jimmy tried to work that out and gave up. "Why wouldn't it be?"

Frohike rolled his eyes. "Because the metal is a rectangle, you dope."

Byers put a hand on Frohike's elbow. "Look, Jimmy. If it's the metal itself that's causing the zone, the zone should be an outline of the metal, at a set distance. See? It should look like a big shadow of the metal."

Jimmy thought about it. "Okay, I guess. So why's it a circle?"

"Because," J. Wayne said slowly, "it's not the metal that's generating the field. It's something in the center of it, something round, apparently."

Byers shook his head. "We're getting ahead of ourselves again. See how ragged the boundary is? It seemed to me this morning that it was fluctuating slightly. The effect died between nine and ten inches from the metal, and it varied. Something nine-and-a-half inches away from it would sometimes be inside the field, and sometimes not."

"Without anything moving?" Frohike asked.

"Yes. The field is fairly constant, but it does move."

Frohike considered it. "Okay, but the metal is longer than it is wide. The field should still be oblong, even if a fluctuating oval."

Byers sighed. "You're right, I suppose. This is. . . interesting. There apparently _is_ something inside it, then."

J. Wayne gazed at it. "Then it might be a whole artifact. I wonder what it's for."

Frohike shrugged. "No way to tell, really. You'd expect, maybe, some moving parts or some markings or something."

"Maybe it's an alien egg," Jimmy said.

Frohike let out an explosive breath. "Jimmy, why don't you leave the theorizing to people with more brain cells than a hunk of Sheetrock?"

Byers fought back a smile. "Why'd you think that, Jimmy?"

Jimmy shrugged. "Read it in a book somewhere. _The Ice Limit_ , I think. It had a big meteorite that was really an alien egg."

They turned to stare at him. "You read _The Ice Limit_?" Byers asked in disbelief.

Jimmy made a face. "I'm not as dumb as I look, guys."

Frohike snorted. "Jimmy, _no one_ is as dumb as you look."

Byers sighed. "Knock it off. But there's no reason to assume it's an egg, Jimmy."

Frohike's turn to shrug. "No reason to assume anything so far. Not that it matters. We just shot enough radiation through it to kill anything alive in there. In retrospect, it may have been a little heavy-handed." He stood up. "Jimmy, why don't you show J. Wayne the morgue and the files." He waved vaguely at the back half of the warehouse. "We probably have something back there that'd be useful. I'll be there in a sec." He waited till the two of them were out of earshot, and motioned to Byers. "You'd better go talk to the hippie."

Byers ran his hand through his hair in Langly-grade aggravation. "God, Mel! I don't know what the hell has gotten into him. I should apologize to J. Wayne. He's really been a jerk about this all day."

Frohike was almost amused. "John, for a bright guy, you're really stupid sometimes."

"What the hell does _that_ mean?"

Frohike sighed and made calming motions. "I'll apologize to J. Wayne, but I doubt it's necessary. He knows what's going on." He cut Byers off again. "Why don't you go talk to Langly and _find out_ what's going on, okay?"

Byers gave him a look that promised a resumption of the conversation later and headed upstairs.

He was surprised to find his room empty, and went on to Langly's. He was sprawled face down on his bed, pillow and arms over his head. Byers pulled the door closed behind him and sat next to Langly. 

"Go away," Langly muttered.

"Ringo, would you just talk to me? What's wrong?" He pulled the pillow away. "You've been acting like a jerk all day."

Langly turned his head and glared at him. "You're an asshole, John."

John blinked. "What did _I_ do?"

Langly didn't answer, he just yanked the pillow back. 

John sighed and rested his hand on Langly's back, wondering what the hell the problem was. Eventually, Langly moved the pillow slightly and said dully, "Cute kid, huh."

John pulled the pillow off and held it tightly, fighting back an urge to smother Langly. "Oh, for pity's sake, Ri. You moron."

"What?"

John tossed the pillow across the room before he succumbed to the provocation of the outraged yelp. " _Yes_ , he's a cute kid. _Yes_ , he's a bright kid. And _yes_ , he's got a crush on Frohike, or hadn't you noticed?"

Langly rolled over and stared. "What?"

Byers stood up and headed for the door. "I'll deal with you later," he said meaningfully. He'd gone maybe five steps when Langly tackled him from behind, slamming them both into a conveniently large pile of discarded clothes. Byers, the wind knocked out of him, gasped for air and ended up with a mouthful of sock. He spat it out. "I hate you sometimes, you know that?" 

Langly laughed and rolled them over onto their sides. "You're nuts about me, admit it."

Byers gave a long-suffering sigh. "I suppose. God knows why."

Langly pinned him down and kissed him hard.

"Okay, never mind," Byers said weakly. "I think I figured it out."

"Deal with me now," Langly suggested.

"You're a moron."

"Very nice, John. Very condescending."

"I'll stop being condescending when you stop being stupid."

"Johnny. . ." There was a hopeless note in the younger man's voice. 

Byers sighed. Langly could be shockingly insecure at times. "He's a cute kid. But I _am_ nuts about you."

Langly wasn't convinced. "He's more your type, you know?"

Byers thought about stuffing the sock in Langly's mouth. "I don't _have_ a type, Ri."

"You know what I mean."

Byers leaned over and whispered into Langly's ear. "I'm _completely_ nuts about you. You make me stupid, Ringo."

Langly swallowed. "That's a good thing?"

Byers shook his head gravely. "No. That just makes it worse." He grabbed Langly by his hair, earning a surprised hiss, and pulled him closer, forcing his head backwards to expose his throat. "I wouldn't _let_ anyone else make me stupid."

Langly was giving serious consideration to fucking Byers into incoherence. It probably wouldn't be the most meaningful contribution he could make to the discussion, but it was pretty close, given what Byers' mouth was doing to him. "But you let me?"

Byers managed to move even closer, which Langly would have considered impossible without a total reworking of physics, or at least the removal of clothes. "I can't control it," he said in the low voice that made Langly more than a little stupid himself. "You put your hands on me, and I'm lucky I can remember my own name."

Langly whimpered. "Johnny, Jesus. . ."

Byers rasped his tongue around Langly's ear. "You do things to me I'm going to end up in therapy for someday. And I'm _saving up_."

"Yeah?" Langly had pretty much given up on holding up his end of the conversation. The voice and the tongue--and dear God the teeth--occupied his entire diminishing attention span.

"You make me _want_ things I'm going to end up in hell for--and I won't regret a second of it."

And the hands--Langly was starting to want some pretty extreme things himself. John's breath on his skin--fuck, fuck, fuck. Hell seemed like the most fleeting consideration. "Johnny--" he gasped, writhing. "Please, God. Please, Johnny--"

"Please what?"

"Anything, God, _please_ , anything, just, please--" 

Byers bit his neck, and he nearly came in his jeans. "Anything" became sharply defined suddenly. "Johnny, fuck me. I swear I'm gonna die if you don't fuck me."

Byers nodded. "That's exactly what you do to me, Ri."

"God--" Langly moaned, somewhere between sin and redemption. "How can you stand it?"

Byers' next words were mumbled into the most desperate kiss Langly could ever remember. "You fuck me. Then I'm okay."

"Please," Langly wasn't even sure if he said it aloud.

Byers nodded again. "I will. Trust me. I will."

**

Frohike almost managed to keep a straight face when the two of them, smelling of sex and complacency, finally emerged from the living quarters. It probably didn't help that Langly had accidentally retrieved a _different_ dirty concert t-shirt from the pile of discarded clothes they hadn't bothered to move from.

Stupid, Byers thought as Frohike winked at him. Stupid was the only possible word for what Langly did to him.

While Byers and Langly had been. . . re-establishing their relationship, J. Wayne and Frohike had managed to cover most of the available flat surfaces with folders and files relating to a wide variety of subjects: UFOs, particularly the delta variety, were the most common theme, but there were also background files on abductions, radiation, Kirlian photography, the MIB, Dealey, Shaver, Palmer, Foster, Arnold, cattle mutilations, Wackenhut, nuclear waste, and even the slim file on Maury Island, which was destined to grow much larger before they were through.

Langly picked up the folder marked "Mutes". "You know most of these are cults, right?" he said to no one in particular.

J. Wayne nodded. "I'm not ready to buy the just-dropping-by-for-fast-food theory or anything. But apparently they're seeing some of them out in Washington."

"You don't think the black helicopters are relevant?" Frohike asked.

J. Wayne shrugged. "There haven't, as far as I know, been any sightings of them on this one. You accept the treaty theory?"

Byers was flipping through the Garrison file. "I don't find it that unlikely that our government would allow ETEs to experiment on humans and livestock in exchange for technology, no," he commented. "But it seems more reasonable to assume that it's part of a widespread, ongoing disinformation operation. Gore Vidal observed that 'Americans have been trained by the media to go into Pavlovian giggles at the mention of conspiracy.' Think about it. You did it last night, J. Wayne. Whenever cattle mutilation is brought up, everyone giggles and looks embarrassed. How could anyone believe in mutes? Obviously it's cults, or hoaxers, or insurance fraud, or Burger King, for that matter. Anyone who takes it seriously must have a screw loose. And maybe that's why it happens."

"Anal-probing," Langly said abruptly, and then turned bright red. Byers glared at him.

Frohike did his damnedest not to laugh as he explained. "Polls show, for however much you can trust them, that a significant percentage of the population believes that alien abductions take place. The part where people stop believing in the possibility and decide it's just absurd is the anal-probing. Why would a superior intelligence come all this way to cut up cows and inspect a trucker's asshole? You'd have to be nuts to believe that. And like Byers said, maybe that's why it happens."

J. Wayne gazed from one to the other. "By that logic, everything that disproves your premise turns into proof. Doesn't that seem a little circular? I'm not saying you're wrong, necessarily, but taken to its extreme. . ."

Byers sighed. "Taken to its extreme, that's the paranoia mindset in a nutshell. The trouble is, the opposite is also true. If you accept that any evidence is proof of paranoia, everything becomes useless."

"So do we want to believe?" Frohike asked, half-smiling.

"It _does_ seem like it's at least worth checking out in person," Byers said. "The metal is certainly. . . unusual. Evidence of _something_ that would be difficult to explain, in any event. I'd like to find out more about it, frankly."

"No way," Langly said belligerently. "I'm not goin' back there."

"Why not?" Jimmy asked, confused. "It was cool!"

"You almost got killed, Jimmy. That was cool?" Byers was incredulous.

"It _was_ cool," Langly said flatly. "It was fucking _cold_. I got thin blood. I'm _not_ doin' that again."

"Look, kid," Frohike said. "It's _July_. And we're going to Tacoma, not Timberline."

"That's in Oregon," J. Wayne pointed out.

"I don't care. The point is, we're not goin' into the mountains, and it's not going to be snowing. Get over it."

Langly whined for the better part of the evening. He seemed to have resigned himself, more or less, to J. Wayne's presence, but certainly not to his mission, or their part in it. Finally Byers pulled him aside and said something quietly to him. Frohike, watching, saw him blink, lick his lips, and blush to his blond roots. Byers caught Frohike looking and offered a sweetly innocent smile which sent Frohike bolting for his room where he laughed himself into tears.

**

Over dinner, they discussed how to handle the trip, Langly having surrendered, if less than gracefully, after Byers' little chat.

"We can't all go all the way across country in the bus," J. Wayne said, arguing for flying out. "And we should get out there as soon as possible."

"We can't afford for all of us to fly," Byers repeated for the third time.

"We can," J. Wayne said firmly.

"You're not buying plane tickets," Frohike said. "Not for everybody. But it might be a good idea for you and Byers to go out to scout. You can tell us if these people are serious."

"Why Byers?" Langly demanded.

"Because he knows the most about it, you dork. Do you want to go?" Frohike snapped.

"Christ, no," Langly said quickly. "I just. . ." He trailed off, not sure how to finish the sentence. Jimmy giggled, and Byers glared at Langly. 

Frohike stifled his laugh and went on. "Well, we have to send someone."

"Why not Jimmy?" Langly asked, passing along the glare he got from Byers to Jimmy.

Byers sighed faintly and tried to come up with a tactful way to put it. "Jimmy is. . . still learning about UFOs. He's not ready to scout a Men in Black sighting."

Jimmy looked a little disappointed, but was honest enough to see the truth of it.

"But I agree," Byers continued. "It shouldn't be me. I'm the best driver we have, and if there is anything to this, we'll need the kind of equipment we can only take in the bus." He glanced at Frohike, a faint smile in his eyes. "Why don't you go with him, Fro?" 

J. Wayne seemed pretty happy with that. "Mel, that'd be great. I'm not all that well versed in UFOs, which is why I was really hoping for your help. If I go out there alone, I'm not going to be able to tell how credible these reports really are. If you came with me, it'd be a learning experience."

Jimmy giggled again, and Langly glared at him again. "Maybe you two should take Jimmy."

Frohike looked horrified. "I'm not teaching Journalism 101, dammit. This is a serious investigation."

This time, Langly tried not to giggle.

Byers rescued Frohike. "If we're driving, we really should have Jimmy with us. It's a long trip, and three drivers would be better."

Langly stopped fighting off the snickers and turned his glare on Byers. "It's not that big a van."

Frohike snorted. "How much space do you two need, anyhow?"

Byers ignored it. "We've done it before."

Jimmy giggled again, and this time Langly snickered right along.

"So Mel and I will fly out?" J. Wayne asked, sounding a bit eager.

Byers caught Frohike's eye. "It's as good a plan as any, I suppose," he said. 

"Okay, but here's the thing," Frohike put in. "It'll take you a week to drive. Do you want us out there before you start, to see if it's worthwhile, and you can stay and finish the issue, or do you want us to hang around here and finish the issue, and then catch a plane in a couple of days so we're still there ahead of you?"

Byers glanced at Langly. It was obvious Langly was hoping Frohike would report back that it was a waste of time, so they wouldn't have to go. Langly wasn't thrilled about cross-country drives, Byers knew, and especially not with Jimmy along with them. It was understandable, but this was a story, and judging from the slag it could well be a massive story, and Byers wasn't going to give it short shrift just because Langly was upset about sharing a hotel room with Jimmy. 

And he had a feeling about this one. . . Frohike obviously did, too. Byers had been exchanging daily emails with J. Wayne for months, now, and he didn't think the young man would waste their time. Plus, truth be told, there was something exciting about the historical angle to all this, the way it all circled back to the first MIB, the first modern sighting, the first UFOlogists. Surely, he and Langly would be able to swing some time alone together, anyway. He nodded to himself. 

"We'll head out first," he said, conscious of Langly's disappointed sulk and Jimmy's excitement.

Langly sighed dramatically, but didn't say anything. It might have had something to do with Byers' hand on his knee, under the table. 

Jimmy grinned, just happy to be a part of it all. "All right!" he said enthusiastically. "When do we leave?"

Byers considered it. "Tomorrow, I guess. We can pack this evening. I know you're not done with your column yet, Langly, but you can email it back when you are."

"Whatever." Langly was still annoyed.

"Okay," Frohike said. "Let's figure out what you'll need to take."

**

"Great," Langly complained as soon as Byers shut his door. "We get to spend the next week in the van with Jimmy. This sucks, Byers."

Byers hung his jacket neatly in the closet. "I expect you'll survive, Ri," he said mildly.

Langly sprawled across the bed. "I could use a little incentive," he grinned. "I remember somebody mentioning something. . ."

Byers sat down beside him, combing his fingers through the blond hair where it was spread out on the covers. "I've never broken a promise to you yet, Ri," he smiled. "Do you think I'd start with that one?"

"Do you think I'd let you?" He beamed. "Jimi fucking Hendrix!"

"And the Experience Music Project."

"Yeah." Langly grinned.

"I suppose there's Kurt Cobain's grave, too."

"He's no Jimi Hendrix," Langly said wistfully.

"Nobody ever was," Byers sighed.

Langly sighed, too. "He still didn't deserve to be killed by that no-talent bitch."

"I still don't think she did it."

"Well, it wasn't suicide."

"I didn't say it was."

Langly dismissed it in the face of more pressing concerns. "A week in the van with Jimmy."

"It's a long trip," Byers said thoughtfully.

"Yeah, John." Langly glared at him with one eye open. "That's why I'm so pissed."

"It's a long trip, in our van, without Frohike," Byers explained.

"So?" 

"So I don't know much about cars. Do you?"

"I know where to put the key and how to make it go."

"Well, we wouldn't want to be stuck in the middle of nowhere when the van breaks down. I think it'll probably need a thorough going-over while we're on the road. Probably at least a couple of times."

"Jimmy knows cars."

"Yes, he certainly does, doesn't he."

Langly smiled, finally. "Thank God. I thought I wasn't going to get laid at all this week."

"I've taken your lack of discipline into account."

"What's that mean?"

"Ri, you can't go two days without sex before I have to chase you off with a stick."

Langly's hand crawled up John's thigh. "Your fault."

"Oh, sure. Blame the victim."

"It's the way you dress, baby," Langly teased. "You know you want it."

Byers sighed heavily. "Apparently, I make you pretty stupid as well."

"You could say that. Or you could just take all your clothes off and let me fuck you."

Byers stood up and took his tie off. "Maybe J. Wayne's more _your_ type."

"Huh?"

"I think I'm too old to keep up with you anymore, Ringo."

Langly sat up and put his arms around Byers' waist. "You're only as young as you feel. And you feel pretty young to me, Johnny."

"Puns," Byers sighed.

"Plan B."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Up: Caffeine, Conspiracies, and the Fortean Nature of Fishes III: Trek to Stupidity: In which the guys _finally_ hit the road, Jimmy rescues a very small family, Ominous Developments develop, and the dangers of urbanification of the rural lifestyle are highlighted in a most unusual way. Oh yes, and there's even more exposition, and the author's beta-readers laugh hard enough at her that she tries to remember CPR.


	3. Trek to Stupidity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> People flock like cattle to Seattle...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I continue to exploit and offend without permission, in the name of basically harmless fun. The song title used as a subtitle here is from The Young Fresh Fellows. The song lyric used as a summary in this part is from "Viva Sea-Tac!" which is Robyn "Crabs Decide My Setlist" Hitchcock and the Young Fresh Fellows. I've also used a Weird Al lyric ("Midnight Star") without permission. A word about the MIB: It may look like I'm stealing details about the MIB from HISTK or from XF, and I'm not. Similarities you notice are there because they stole them from the same place I did, which is to say, UFO lore. Also, oh boy is this where the age of this starts to show. The guys don't have smartphones. That's gonna annoy people.
> 
> Spoilers: Weirdly enough, I've kind of spoiled the ending of "Security", which is a _Vengeance Unlimited_ episode.

Loading the bus Saturday took a lot longer than it should have. Frohike, in Fifties Dad On Vacation mode, supervised. "For God's sake!" he bellowed for the eighth or ninth time, "You should have been on the road hours ago!"

Byers abandoned all hope of leaving before noon, and tried to take solace in the notion that they were providing cheap entertainment to the neighbors. Not to mention providing an ironclad reason to leave the warehouse alone while they were away—they were obviously taking everything with them, and there'd clearly be not so much as a paperclip left behind.

Frohike pawed through Langly's duffel again. "Look, I already told you, Hairboy, it's _July_! You're not gonna need _mittens_. Go try again."

Langly headed back in, grumbling things under his breath Byers was happy he didn't catch. Mittens didn't seem likely to compel the neighbors through seven locks and an electronic alarm system. Particularly not in July.

"Jimmy!"

"Uh, yeah?" Bond looked like a kid with his hand in the candy jar. 

"What the hell are you bringing this football for?"

Byers shook his head as the argument went on for more than a minute. Jimmy lost, as everyone knew he would, but the football wasn't likely to tempt anyone, either.

"Byers! Where's the surveillance equipment?"

"Third cabinet from the back, under the bench. Where it always is, Fro. And before you ask, yes, I got the night lenses for the DVRs, and yes, the extra cards, and yes, I packed the full range of listening devices and board cameras."

Frohike looked slightly put out at having nothing to complain about. "What about the first aid kit?"

"It's fine. I checked it."

Frohike glowered. "Did you _double check_?"

Byers succumbed to a brief urge to sarcasm. "No. I actually just made sure there was an out-of-code bottle of aspirin and a selection of Hello Kitty Band-Aids."

"C'mon, Byers, I'm trying to get you guys organized and out of here!"

"Mel, relax. I'm sure we'll get to World's Biggest Ball of Twine before it closes tonight."

Jimmy giggled, and J. Wayne watched all this with bemusement.

Frohike glared at Byers, hands on his hips. "The kid is a terrible influence on you, you know that?"

Byers smiled. "Somebody has to be. Which of the laptops are we taking?"

Frohike sighed. "The newest one, and Langly's, plus yours. I'll take mine on the plane. Are you guys gonna need paper files on anything?"

"I've got the ones it seems most likely we'll need. If I think of anything else, you can bring it."

"What about after we leave?"

"I imagine we can call Mulder. He may be able to offer some new information, while he's at it."

"Okay. Did you sign a check for the printers?"

"Yes. I left it where I always do."

"Ah-ah!" Frohike caught Langly trying to slip past him. "Bring that here. Let's see how you did this time."

Langly sighed and handed over the duffel again. Frohike went through it one more time. "Langly, do you really need all these damned CDs?"

"I wouldn't, if you'd have let me get that iPod."

"We're not having that discussion again. What the hell is—Tea bags? Oh." Frohike stuffed something back in a pocket, looking slightly embarrassed. Langly turned bright pink. Byers pulled himself off the wall he was leaning against and walked casually back into HQ, trying very hard not to giggle. He heard Jimmy behind him, snickering like a gang of squirrels on a chalkboard, and elected to ignore it.

"You got the tap jammers?" Frohike demanded, following him in.

"Yes. Second cabinet over the workbench. Like always."

"GPS?"

"Yes. And the vehicle trackers. And the RF detectors. And the scanners. And the battery packs, and the adaptors."

"The weatherproof ones?"

"Yes, of course."

"Stun guns?"

"The cell phone and the flashlight. The pepper spray pens and the regular canisters. Plus the injector gun in the first aid kit. Metal detector, Geiger counter, UV powders and lights. I don't think you need to worry so much."

"You've got the regular flashlights, right? Batteries fresh?"

"Yes, of course."

"It's not like he forgets this stuff, Fro," Langly said from behind them. "He's even more obsessive than you are."

"I know, I know. But we don't know what we're going to find out there. We might as well be prepared for anything." He paused. "You all have your night gear? In case we end up doing a little funky poaching?"

Byers nodded. "Yes. Are we taking yours?"

"Yeah. And all the extra documentation."

Langly snickered. "You're not trying to get false IDs on the plane?"

Frohike sighed. "Your cell phones? All the batteries charged up?"

"Yes, Dad," Langly said.

"Just makin' sure. Who's got the good credit card?"

Byers raised a finger. "Me."

"Langly, you have the updated contact information?"

"Oh yeah." Langly headed upstairs.

"See? I do have to remind you. Look, Byers, you can get two rooms if you have to, as long as you stay at the cheaper places."

Byers smiled and patted the little man on the back. "We'll work it out. Stop worrying."

Frohike looked away. "I've got a feeling about this one."

Byers nodded. "Me too."

Frohike glanced at him. "What kind of feeling?"

"This could be big," Byers said carefully.

"It could also be dangerous," Frohike said.

Byers didn't respond for a moment, and Frohike was surprised by the pensive look on his face. "You're worried, too," he said.

Byers nodded again. "A little. I don't know why."

"The biggest stories are usually the most dangerous."

"And we have rather a poor track record in Washington State."

Frohike smiled. "It's July. No skiing accidents." He sobered abruptly. "Look, take the tackle box."

Byers was surprised. "I'm not _that_ worried, Mel."

"I am, John. Take the box, drive carefully. Don't get stopped and searched. If we don't need it, good. If we do, we'll have it."

Byers sighed. "I really think you're worried about nothing, but if it'll make you feel better, we'll take it." He followed Frohike into the back, where the box was concealed in a cardboard box between several similar boxes. 

"I checked it last month. Just be careful. Okay?"

Byers lifted the box and carried it out to the van. They were joined halfway by Langly, who stared at it. "What's the panic box for?"

Byers smiled calmly. "Just in case. Did anyone remember the insect repellent?"

Frohike nodded. "Sure did."

Jimmy came practically skipping into the warehouse. "Hey, are we ready yet?"

In direct contrast to Langly, Jimmy enjoyed road trips to a degree that bordered on the pathological. In fact, it was actually one of the things that made Langly so irritable about them. Byers could sympathize, honestly. Three hundred odd miles of Jimmy trying to remember which bottle had fallen off the wall now had pretty much permanently scarred all three of his traveling companions. They'd ended up drawing straws for the opportunity to sit politely next to Yves in her car and try to avoid being pumped for information while not frustrating her enough to rip someone's throat out.

Jimmy took a step back when he saw what Byers was carrying. "Whoa, hey. We're not gonna need that, are we?"

Byers shook his head. "No. But we'll take it just in case."

"That's cool. Like carrying an umbrella stops the rain."

Frohike snapped his fingers. "Umbrellas! You boys got your umbrellas and raincoats?"

"It's _July_ ," Langly said nastily.

Frohike glared at him. "It's also Seattle."

"I'm not sure we have room for rain gear," Byers said, "and it _is_ July. Even Seattle doesn't get much rain in July."

"Seattle gets more rain in the middle of a damned drought than we're used to," Frohike snapped.

It turned out to be a moot point. The only umbrellas they could find had holes in them, or had had pieces cannibalized to jerry-rig equipment, or, in one case, had a family of small mice living in it. Jimmy wouldn't allow them to be chased out, and in fact dashed off to find them some cheese. He came back with a bag of Cheez-Puffs. He knelt by the umbrella, trying to tempt the mice out.

"C'mon, little fellas. C'mon…"

"Rat poison," Langly said darkly to Frohike.

Jimmy stared at them in horror. "You wouldn't!"

Frohike glared at Langly. He'd known better than to mention it in front of Jimmy. "Look, Jimmy, they're vermin…"

"But they're cute!" Jimmy all-but-wailed. "I'll be responsible for them, please?"

"Geez," Langly groaned. "They're not _puppies_ , Jimmy."

Jimmy stood up and loomed over the two of them, looking as menacing as he knew how. "You're _not_ killing the little guys, okay? They've got babies. What kind of a rotten person would kill little animals with babies?"

"My kind," Frohike muttered. Jimmy backed him against the wall, and he abruptly conceded the argument. "Fine, but if those little bastards eat our files, you're a dead man."

Byers sighed. "This is all very touching, and I'm sure PETA would be delighted, but we do have to get going. Mel, leave the cheese things there, and we'll worry about the mice when we get back. I don't think they're going to make it downstairs just to gnaw on a copy of the Starr Report."

Langly snickered. "Nobody's that hard up for entertainment."

"As for the umbrellas," Byers said, ignoring him, "if we need them, we'll buy them when we get there."

Frohike snorted. "Good luck. You ever try to buy a damned umbrella in that town?"

Byers sighed again. "I'm sure we can figure something out. I'm not going to worry about it now, though."

**

It still took another hour before they were actually on the road. As they left the city, Byers found himself mediating a dispute between Jimmy and Langly regarding radio stations. He set aside the folder he'd been trying—without success—to concentrate on and leaned forward. "Jimmy's driving, and he has the radio. When you drive, Langly, you can have it."

Langly sulked. "We're gonna be out of reach of any good stations by then. Stuck out in cow country with Bible Bangers predicting the end of the world on every channel."

Byers glared at him. "Maybe you'll get lucky and find a talk show about the potato harvest." He leaned back, less than anxious to hear what he was certain would be Langly's judicious and well-controlled verbal reaction. 

Jimmy cheerfully found an easy listening station that was playing John Denver's "Calypso". Langly heaved a sigh like he'd just agreed to donate a lung, and Byers handed him a file. 

"Here. Do something useful. Go through this and see where Crisman's mentioned."

"That's exciting."

"Oddly enough, Ringo, I'm not actually trying to provide you with excitement." He leaned across and dug through Langly's duffel. "Here." Byers threw a CD and his player at him.

"'Phones suck, John. You can never get them loud enough."

"I love road trips," Byers said aloud to no one in particular.

Jimmy started singing along with James Taylor. Without another word, Langly put on the headphones and turned the volume all the way up.

By the time they stopped for dinner, they'd actually been making good time. Jimmy might not be able to interpret an MRI, but he could read a map, a talent Byers particularly respected after a long and allegedly deliberate tour, with an increasingly sarcastic-but-determined Mulder behind the wheel, of every back road in Vermont. With Langly cursing every time he saw a cow. And with Frohike trying to explain the thing about the lemurs and the mothership to Jimmy, who didn't get it at all, but did latch on, quite happily, to the tradition of yelling "Frink" at cows. 

Eventually they'd found their way back into New Hampshire, which Byers had almost forgotten was the point, except that Frohike had kept up a running monologue on how far behind the schedule they were. Byers had been more than ready for a drink when they finally pulled in beside the despairing gangrenous flicker of the "A-N-C-Y" sign of what apparently was the local version of the Bates Motel. After four hours of listening to Langly do battle with man-eating cows in his sleep, Byers had gone to the sleep of the righteously exhausted in the fortunately-unoccupied bathtub. And didn't wake up the next morning until the maid began shrieking and he was called upon to demonstrate that he wasn't, in fact, a corpse. Which Langly had slept through, a bovine expression of bliss on his own face.

Frohike had started stocking the first aid kit with Valium, after that.

Langly bolted inside as soon as they stopped, and Byers sighed and handed Jimmy a twenty dollar bill. "Do you think you and Langly can order without fighting?"

Jimmy laughed. "Yep. Hamburgers, fries, and Cokes, right?"

Byers nodded. McDonald's wasn't his idea of a good dinner, but it was fast and cheap, and Byers was hoping they could get in another few hours of driving tonight. "Order for me, too. We need to check in with HQ before it gets any later."

"Cool."

J. Wayne was still occupying a hotel room, to Byers' amusement. He wondered how much longer that would last. At the moment, J. Wayne was apparently dividing his time in the warehouse between file-digging and helping Frohike put together the new issue. 

"He's damned good at this, too. A natural muckraker," Frohike said as proudly as if he'd invented the kid himself. " _Powder Keg_ will be kicking themselves in the ass for years."

"Has he had a chance to catch up with Mulder yet?" Byers asked, doing his best not to laugh.

"Mulder doesn't know he's in town yet. I'm going over there tomorrow, and maybe I'll drag the kid with me." Frohike listened to the suspicious noises coming down the line. "Shut up, Byers."

Byers fought down the snickers. "I didn't say a word."

"You didn't _have_ to. How are the kids behaving?"

Byers sighed. "Well, so far I haven't had to actually call any time-outs. _Or_ threaten to turn the van around."

Frohike laughed. "See any cows?"

"Not yet. I'm prepared to blindfold Ringo and gag Jimmy when we do."

"Be a lot easier if you'd just take some of the Valium yourself."

"I'm never the one who needs it," Byers said darkly.

"If you can't get him to take it, you _will be_. So are you stopping there for the night?"

"Hopefully not, unless the two of them resort to hair-pulling and 'He's making faces at me!' I'd like to get another three or four hours in."

"You don't have to drive straight through, Byers."

"I know. How's the Diamante Security story look?"

Frohike made an irritable noise. "The CEO has disappeared. So we may be too late on it."

"Well, we were hearing those rumors…"

"I know. I think we should hang onto it until next month. If something breaks while we're in production, we'll look stupid."

Byers was frustrated. "If we could figure out what's going to break—"

"I know. But I don't see how we can. I was thinking we should just go with the China computer dumps."

Byers sighed. "Whatever you think is best, I suppose. I just wish there was some way to contact—"

"You don't find him, he finds you," Frohike intoned. "I don't think he's the kind of guy who's interested in publicity, anyhow."

Byers almost smiled at that. "Probably not. Okay, it's up to you. I suppose I'd better get in there before they start throwing ice cubes at each other or something else equally adult."

Frohike laughed. "Are they really doing that bad?"

"No. Once we got the radio stations sorted out, they pretty much ignored each other."

"Okay. Hey, Byers, remember the time zones are changing for you—"

"I know."

"—and don't drive too long. It's not what the clock says—"

"—It's how tired you are," Byers finished with him. "I remember. Stop worrying, Mel."

"Sorry. Something just doesn't feel right."

"It has the potential to be a huge story. No one's ever gotten to the bottom of the Maury mess."

"I know. I'm not suggesting we scrap it. But I think we need to be careful."

"We will. We are. Don't worry so much. If you need to get through to us, I'll keep my cell on tonight."

"Okay. Keep in touch, Byers."

"Of course. Talk to you tomorrow, Fro." He disconnected, hearing the older man sigh gustily as he did so. Frohike did seem unusually worried about this one. Byers decided it probably had more to do with the travel plans than anything else. Cross-country flights drove Frohike crazy, Byers knew. He wasn't the kind of guy who coped well with enforced inactivity. He preferred to be _doing_ something. 

Byers locked the bus and headed into the restaurant, only to discover Jimmy and Langly giggling at each other across the table. He sighed.

"Happy Meals?"

"They've got _MIB2_ toys," Langly explained, snickering. "You got the worm guys."

Byers shook his head. "Fantastic."

Jimmy giggled. "I got Jay, and Langly got Frank, but we traded."

Langly threw a fry at him and turned back to Byers. "How's the issue coming?"

"The Diamante CEO has disappeared."

Langly raised an eyebrow. "Disappeared?"

"Evidently."

"Chapel?"

"Possibly. So we're going to hold off on the story for a while and see if anything breaks."

"Good call. What are we running instead? The Atlantic salmon farms story?"

"Illegal computer dumping in China."

Langly squinted at his burger as he tried to remember the details. "The junk heaps?"

"Yeah. The GMOs will still be there, but meanwhile that acid is leaking into the groundwater."

"What's a GMO again?" Jimmy asked.

"Genetically modified organisms," Byers reminded him.

"Like those tomatoes with the fish genes," Langly explained.

"Right, okay. And those fish that might get loose."

Byers nodded. "Exactly."

"Why's that bad again?"

"Introduced species kill off the natives," Langly said.

Byers nodded again. "And often lead to a weakening of the gene pool of a species, leaving it susceptible to disease."

"Plus pollution, and they spread disease and parasites to the natives."

"Oh, right. But I kinda feel bad for the fish, they don't get to live in the ocean."

Langly sighed. "They're fish farms, Jimmy, it's not _Free Willy_ or anything."

"Even if they don't escape," Byers added, "they still cause pollution and disease, because they're raised in net pens. And the overuse of antibiotics in the industry is a serious danger."

"Right. Like that soap you guys told me not to buy anymore."

"Yeah, like that," Langly said.

"Okay." He looked at Langly. "I know they're just fish, Langly. But I don't think anything should be caged up. I mean, somewhere they don't want to be. Like Peanuts, I mean Simon."

"I never want to hear that name again," Langly muttered.

Byers shook his head. "Okay, finish up, and let's see if we can get a little farther before it gets dark."

Jimmy was still thinking about things. "Would that Chapel guy kill someone, do you think?"

Byers shrugged. "I don't know. No one really knows anything about him."

"We should try harder to find out," Langly said.

Jimmy dismissed it with his usual attention span. "Okay, so these Men in Black guys. They're not like the movie."

"No."

"And they didn't make them up for the movie."

"No. There've been stories about the Men in Black since Maury Island. They've possibly been around for much longer than that. But Maury Island was the first one. After Dahl reported his sighting to Crisman, a man dressed in black took him to breakfast the next morning—"

"That doesn't seem very scary."

"—and explained that people who go around telling improbable stories sometimes come to harm."

"Wait, just one guy?"

"In that first case, yes. Since then, the classic pattern is three MIB in a vintage black car."

"In mint condition," Langly added.

"Yes. Usually a Cadillac, though not always."

"What kind of Cadillac?"

"I don't know right off-hand, Jimmy. I don't think it matters that much. In any event, Dahl said the man told him about his own sighting, rather than asking him about it. Dahl said the man was proving that he knew more about the sighting than Dahl did."

Jimmy's brow furrowed. "The guy threatened him, right?"

"Yes. And his family."

"Then how come we know what the guy said to him?"

"Because he didn't listen to the warnings, and continued to tell people."

"Oh. Did they get him?"

"No. There's never actually been a report of the Men in Black following through on their threats."

"A lot of weird deaths, though," Langly said.

"Possibly, or possibly not. It's often reported that Dahl disappeared after that, but in fact he died in 1982, in Tacoma. By that time he was unemployed, or self-employed, or retired, depending on the report, and had kept something of a low profile, again depending on what you believe."

"There were rumors he was in Witness Protection."

"Well, there were also reports that he and Crisman had confessed the whole thing was a hoax."

"Crisman was supposed to have disappeared, too," Langly observed cynically.

"Crisman died in the VA hospital in Seattle in 1975."

"How come people think they disappeared?" Jimmy asked.

Byers shook his head. "Dahl apparently abandoned his house and didn't bother to tell anyone where he was going, shortly after the incident. He turned up later. Crisman did much the same. It was years before anyone heard from them again."

"Except we now know Crisman was popping up all over the place between then and his death," Langly said thoughtfully.

"Fred Crisman," Byers mused. "Conspiracy Theory Whack-A-Mole."

Langly laughed. "You're so twisted, John."

"Okay, but what about these weird guys?"

"Which ones," Langly was still snickering.

"Are they CIA or something?"

Byers shrugged. "No one seems to know. No one admits to running them, which isn't surprising. Whatever their mission is, part of it seems to be to deny their own existence. All of the stories include some of the most bizarre details, and many of them sound frankly incredible."

Langly nodded. "Which might be the plan. If you tell people you saw a UFO, they might believe you. If you tell people you were threatened by three guys in a dark car who knew all about you, and who didn't seem to know what a fork was for, then you just sound paranoid."

"People tend to dismiss paranoia," Byers commented. "It's more comfortable for them to believe that they know what's going on, and that no one is, well, out to get them."

Jimmy had been chewing this over. "Wait. You said they don't know what forks are? Maybe they're Chinese or something. Do they have accents?"

Byers shook his head. "Sometimes. Sometimes they apparently sound like movie gangsters. Sometimes they speak to each other in an unidentifiable language. But they're not Chinese. When he said they don't seem to know what forks are, that's not what he meant."

"It just comes up in practically every story. These guys seem baffled by refrigerators, or they ask a lot of questions about a TV or a phone, or they dissect a ball point pen, or they act like they've never seen a fork before."

Byers nodded. "And maybe they don't know, or maybe it's just an act."

Jimmy grinned slyly. "Hey, I've got a really weird idea…"

"Here it comes," Langly said, slumping.

"I know this sounds crazy, but what if—"

"—they're really aliens," Langly finished with him.

Byers glanced at Langly's expression, and couldn't keep a straight face. Langly glared at him.

"Listen, Jimmy. Everybody says that about them, okay? It might be why they act like that, okay? To get people to think that. There's no evidence they're aliens. They're probably some government's agents."

"Oh." Jimmy's face fell. Then he brightened up. "Like in the movie?"

"No, Jimmy," Langly said heavily, standing up. "I'm gonna get another Coke to go. You guys want anything?"

"That sounds good," Jimmy said, slurping the last dregs from the bottom of the cup with his straw. He handed Langly the change from the twenty.

"I'm driving, okay?" Langly said, and headed back for the counter.

Jimmy giggled. "I don't think he likes my music."

Byers laughed as they went out the door. "He likes it loud."

Byers took shotgun, and Langly climbed into the driver's seat, and put the key in the ignition. The first thing he did was change the radio station from Tears for Fears' "Sea Song", flipping around increasingly dispiritedly until he finally found a station playing Pink Floyd.

"Why don't you get some sleep, John."

"With that playing? I'll wait till we get to the hotel."

"No, 'cause I want you to drive later while I'm sleeping."

"We don't have to drive straight through, Ringo."

"Oh, I know. But, like, I'm kinda hoping we can get through, you know, some of the cow states, while it's still dark."

Byers sighed. "We'll see how it goes. I don't think we could make it much farther than Illinois by tomorrow morning, though."

Langly made a noise that implied he was less-than-sanguine about the prospect, and Byers patted his arm. "We've got the Valium."

"Great. We'll give it to Jimmy."

Byers sighed again. "I love road trips."

"Me too," Jimmy said happily from the back seat.

Langly turned the radio down almost enough to qualify as a token effort, and brushed his hand across Byers'. "Get some sleep."

"I wonder how many mice there are," Jimmy said suddenly.

Byers turned around and blinked at him. "What?"

"In the umbrella. The mice. I'm wondering how many names I need to come up with for them. Maybe I should ask J. Wayne to count them for me. He's vegetarian, so he probably won't want to kill them."

Byers sighed. "However many there are now, I'm sure there'll be more by the time we get home."

Jimmy seemed pretty happy with that. "Good. I'll think up a lot of names for them. Do you have anything I can write on?"

Byers slid a hand across his face. "There's a stack of notepads and some pens in the first drawer on the left under the workbench."

"Thanks, Byers. What do you think about 'Harriet'?"

Byers refused to look at Langly, but it didn't stop the snickering. "Jimmy?"

"Yeah?"

"There are some earplugs in the back of that drawer. Would you please pass me a set?"

Langly turned the radio up.

**

The next thing Byers was aware of, Langly had slammed on the brakes, and he was being thrown forward, hard, against the seatbelt. He opened his eyes and found himself wondering if he really was awake. He pulled out the earplugs, and heard Langly muttering. It sounded a lot like "Oh shit, oh fuck, oh shit…" Byers recognized it as Langly's panic mantra. Usually it made Byers want to shake him, but this time he found himself agreeing with the sentiment, if not the repetition.

" _What_ is _that_?" Jimmy asked in total shock.

"That" was a—creature—which was staring up at them from the road in front of the van. It was a leathery grayish-olive in the heaadlights, and standing crouched and frozen, apparently equally surprised to see them. Byers estimated its height at about four feet. It had pale eyes with the slitted pupils of a reptile, and the head of a frog. It stood with arms upraised, as though trying to ward them off. As the four of them stared at each other, another, slightly smaller, creature loped onto the road behind the first. It seemed to be limping slightly, with something whitish wrapped around one—hand, forepaw, whatever. It almost ran into the first creature, not seeming to have realized it had stopped. It blinked slowly at the larger creature, and then turned its body to face the bus. It blinked slowly at them, too, giving the impression of a particularly dim bullfrog, and Jimmy giggled nervously.

Byers shook himself slightly. "Get the camera, Jimmy," he hissed, not taking his eyes off the animal.

They heard Jimmy trying to find the camera in the cabinets and cupboards. The first creature had turned its body to blink at the second one. Byers sighed. "Bottom left, cupboard over the workbench closest to you, Jimmy. In a black case."

The second animal lurched up to the van, and put its hand up to the windshield. Byers realized that the thing was holding a piece of dirty cloth. It started to wipe off the dirty windshield with the rag. Byers became aware that his jaw had dropped. Langly was still chanting under his breath. The first creature stepped up to the driver's side window and seemed to be waiting there for Langly to roll the window down. Byers figured that was only slightly more probable than what they seemed to be witnessing. 

Jimmy eventually managed to find the camera, and handed it up.

By now, the first creature had given up and was hunching back off the road, followed by the second one. Byers swore as the camera's startup screens displayed. Six seconds later, he ended up with a poorly-lit lens-flared shot of the back of the smaller animal through the smeared windshield. 

Byers watched as the creatures slipped back into the woods. "Another great moment in journalism history," he sighed. He glanced across and put his hand over Langly's where it rested on the steering wheel. "Ringo, _please_ , try to relax."

Langly nodded, but didn't stop muttering. 

Byers sighed again. "Jimmy, there's a couple of Snickers bars in my bag, in the front pocket. Would you get one for him, please?"

With the help of the chocolate carrot, they eventually managed to persuade Langly to drive the two miles to a parking lot, and to calm down enough to actually start breathing again. Byers rubbed his shoulder for a few minutes, murmuring things to him Jimmy tried to pretend he wasn't listening to.

Finally Langly shivered violently and slouched into the seat. "Johnny… What the fuck was that?"

Byers shrugged. "'The incredible Frog-Boy is on the loose again.'"

Langly stared at him. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"Never mind. Do you know where we are?"

Langly shook his head. "Near someplace called Sundale, I guess. I was trying to find a gas station."

"Loveland, Ringo."

Langly blinked and chewed on his candy bar, thinking it over.

Jimmy giggled again, still a bit unsteadily. "That's a weird name."

That seemed to bring Langly back a little. He made an irritated noise. "You think everything's a weird name. You spent three days making 'Chuckanut' and 'Humptulips' jokes in Washington the last time we went out there."

Byers shook his head. "The Loveland Frog."

Langly let out a breath like he'd been punctured. "Oh, yeah."

"That was a frog?" Jimmy asked.

"No…" Byers tried to explain. "It's a cryptid. An animal people aren't sure if it's real or not."

"Like Bigfoot," Langly inserted.

"Bigfoot's a hoax," Byers said. "But, this, uh, I guess it's probably, real. I suppose. Maybe. Honestly, I'm not sure _what_ we just saw, let alone if it was real."

"I saw it," Jimmy said. "So did you guys. So it must be real."

"Remember what I said about _V_ , Jimmy?" Langly asked wearily.

"That the lizard guys _aren't_ real?"

Langly sighed. "Yeah, whatever. But they looked kind of real, right. So seeing it doesn't always mean it's real."

"Oh." Jimmy tried to work that through. "Well, we just saw _something_. I mean, didn't we?"

Byers shrugged, shaking his head. "I suppose it could have been a fraud. But we're the only people on this road, as far as I can tell. Why would anyone bother to try to hoax a deserted road?"

"I dunno, John. But the Loveland Frog as some kind of rural Squeegee Man?"

Jimmy looked from one to the other. "So what is this frog thing? 'Cause it didn't look that much like a frog to me."

Langly closed his eyes tightly. "The head did, a little. You can see where the name came from, anyway."

"In 1955," Byers tried again, "there were a couple of reports of, well, pretty much what we just saw, standing by the side of the road. In one case the report said there were three of them, and that they had some kind of weapon."

"Like a gun?"

Byers shook his head. "It was described as a metal wand, with sparks coming from one end of it."

Jimmy tried to sort that out. "They're aliens?"

Byers shook his head again. "I don't know. I'm just telling you what the original reports said. Quite a long time went by with no further reported sightings. But then they started turning up again. A couple of policemen were said to have seen them on separate occasions, standing or lying in the road. There have been infrequent sightings since then."

Langly gazed out the windshield with a distracted air. "Johnny, are there any more Snickers?"

Jimmy handed him another one. "Did this frog thing ever hurt anyone?"

"Evidently not," Byers said. "it was always just reported as watching people, or moving across or alongside the road. No one seems to have seen it doing anything threatening."

"It just washes windows?"

Byers shook his head again. "Ah… No one has, in fact, ever suggested… anything like that."

Langly tore into the candy bar. "I think…" he paused. "I think somebody else better drive for a while."

Byers took a deep breath and opened his door. "Scoot across, I'll drive." Langly wasn't especially pleased to watch him get out and go around the front of the bus, but he pulled himself together and moved across the bench seat. He locked the door while Byers climbed in the other side, all without taking his eyes off of Byers. He sighed faintly in relief as Byers locked the door on his side and started the engine. 

"We'll find a gas station, and get directions to a hotel," Byers decided. "It's late, and we all need some sleep."

"Johnny?"

"What?"

"I'm sleeping with the lights on."

Jimmy giggled again. "Me too."

Byers smiled a little wanly. "I guess we can all share a room, then." He handed Langly the camera. "Did the picture come out?"

Langly played with the displays for a moment. "Yeah. It looks a lot like that picture of Tessie. Or maybe one of those Bigfoot ones."

"Is that good?" Jimmy asked.

"Or, you know what it looks like?" Langly continued relentlessly. "Remember three weeks ago, when the printer malfunctioned and we ended up with blotches all over the galleys?"

Byers sighed. "Okay, okay. I get the picture."

"Actually, no, you didn't."

Byers sighed again. "Get out the map."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Up: Caffeine, Conspiracies, and the Fortean Nature of Fishes IV: Earth Boys are Much Harder: In which, well, Entirely Gratuitous Sex happens, and a lot of adolescent snickering. It's Mulder and Frohike, so what do you expect? If it's of any use, people eat things, some driving gets done, and Byers and Jimmy sort of get an illustration of Instant Karma.


	4. Earth Boys Are Much Harder

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Man in the Moon… and Mulder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I continue to exploit and offend without permission. The movie title parodied in the subtitle here is not mine. There's some quoting of an old Seattle show called _Almost Live_ , which would periodically invite members of our heavy metal community to comment on the lameness of current events, still a cultural touchstone with my fellow citizens. The flower story in this part is loosely based on a short piece of cryptobotanical fiction (Yes, there are plant cryptids.) by John Blunt, entitled "The Orchid Horror", which is also where I got the grex from. What's a grex, you're probably asking? A grex (plural, 'grexes', believe it or not) is a classification for cultivars derived from the same hybrid. The flower does not actually exist, events recounted by Mulder did not happen, any resemblance to real persons living or dead would frankly surprise the hell out of me.
> 
> Spoilers: If you're still reading the excellent paper on _Gryllodes sigillatus_ , "Co-evolution of nuptial gift and female multiple mating resulting in diverse breeding systems" by the Centre for Ecological Research at Kyoto University, I've probably ripped the suspense right out of it for you. Sorry.

The three of them finally woke up, or at least abandoned attempts to sleep, around eleven on Sunday morning. No one had done much unpacking, so heading out was quick. Byers checked them out, and came back to the parking lot to discover Jimmy and Langly standing speechless at the back of the bus. He wandered over and stood between them. Then he looked down.

"That's… interesting," he finally said.

Jimmy and Langly nodded like twin drinking birds. 

Byers sighed. "There's a pond right over by the office. It's coincidence, that's all."

They nodded again.

Aligned on the bumper—big, middle, and small—were three frogs. Gazing up at them with what Byers had to think of as amphibian smugness. He leaned down to see if he could shoo them away, feeling a little foolish, and the middle one made a noise. Byers pulled his hand back fast.

Langly made a noise of his own. 

Jimmy blinked at them all without bias. "I thought frogs said 'ribbit'."

"I thought frogs said 'Budweiser'," Langly muttered. "I could use one."

Byers leaned forward again, and this time the smallest one half-crawled onto his hand. He held it up to his face, slowly. It made the same noise, and man and phib blinked at each other for several moments. "Jimmy," he said calmly, still looking at the frog, "get the other two, and we'll put them back by the pond."

Feeling even more foolish, he started walking towards the pond. The frog didn't move, not seeming put out at the unusual mode of transport. He heard Jimmy, behind him, say "C'mon, guys. I bet there's big juicy flies over there."

He waited until Jimmy put his passengers down, and then crouched down to put his on the grass. The frog made the noise again. 

Jimmy handed him something. "I guess they want this."

Feeling exceptionally foolish, Byers set the dollar bill on the grass next to the frog. It hopped across and sat on it.

Jimmy laughed. "I wish I had some flies for them or something."

Byers stood, feeling about as foolish as he ever had. "Langly?" he asked, not turning around to see how big his audience actually was.

"He's still over there," Jimmy said. 

"Thank God for that," Byers sighed. "We're not going to tell him about this, right? It's our little secret."

Jimmy laughed again. "Okay, Byers. Whatever you say."

"Thank you."

"I think it was nice," Jimmy continued, not seeming to notice Byers' thorough humiliation. "I wonder what they're gonna do with it? Do you think they'll give it to the other ones? The big ones?"

"I don't want to know," Byers said resolutely. "Let's just go wash our hands and get out of here."

**

"Johnny?"

"Yes, Ringo."

"I didn't hear that, did I?"

"No. You were hallucinating it. Lack of sleep or something."

"Oh. Good."

"Low blood sugar, maybe. We'll have breakfast, and you can take a nap, and it'll be okay."

"Okay."

"Well, _I_ heard it. Those frogs said 'Change'! I've never heard frogs talk before!"

"Shut up, Jimmy."

"And keep your eyes on the road."

"Except on TV. Kermit talks."

"Jimmy?"

"And those beer frogs. What?"

"Shut up."

**

They were most of the way through breakfast when Langly couldn't stand it anymore. "What the hell is so funny, Jimmy?" Families enjoying post-church pancakes looked up disapprovingly. Langly lowered his voice, but his attitude would require three or four more hours of sleep. "Are you going to giggle all damned day?"

"IHOP," Jimmy said, and then giggled. "IHOP. Get it?"

Byers sighed.

"I've been _waiting_ for one of you guys to get it!"

Byers summoned the waitress and asked for more coffee.

"IHOP," Jimmy said again. "I'm a frog and IHOP. I-HOP."

"Yes, we get it, Jimmy."

Langly turned to Byers. "Experience Music Project."

Byers nodded and poured him another cup of coffee. "I'll go with you. We'll get you a shirt. I'll pay."

Langly slugged it back. "You bet your ass you will." Which was the last thing he said for several hours.

**

They stopped briefly for lunch and more coffee, lots of it, in one of the larger towns, and Byers selected a deli next to a music store. He handed Langly some money and watched him disappear into it without a word. Jimmy had finally stopped making frog jokes, after Byers threatened to tell Yves about the picture of her he kept under his pillow. Langly hadn't so much as smiled.

Langly turned up twenty minutes later with a small bag and something approaching life in his expression, and silently tore into the sandwich Byers had ordered for him.

They (Jimmy and Byers, anyway) agreed to get off the road before dark tonight and try to catch up on some sleep. In separate rooms. Langly signaled his acceptance of the decision, Byers figured, by not throwing anything at anybody. 

Byers checked in early with Frohike, keeping one eye on Langly.

"See any cows yet?"

"Uh… No. Not really. Not that we noticed."

Frohike paused, hearing the strain in Byers' voice. "What happened?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you." 

"You're all okay?"

Byers exhaled and tried to relax a little. "Yeah. It's been a long day, and nobody got much sleep last night, but we're all fine. We're going to find a hotel after dinner."

"How's the kid holding up?"

Byers gave him a sideways glance. "We're all fine, Fro. I'll tell you more about it in person. If you need to get us tonight, I'll have my cell phone on, okay? If I, uh, don't answer, try Jimmy, or just call back."

Frohike laughed. "Gotcha. I'm dropping the paper off at the printers in about an hour, and then heading over to Mulder's, so if you need me, I'll leave mine on, okay?"

Byers half-chuckled. "We should get Mulder a better tap jammer for Christmas."

Frohike snorted. "We should get Mulder some better _locks_ for Christmas.

"Is J. Wayne going with you?"

"Assume so. Haven't asked him yet. He disappeared into the morgue this morning and hasn't made a peep in hours."

"There seems to be some of that going around. Enjoy your evening, Mel. _All_ of you."

Frohike sighed. "That kid's—"

"—a bad influence on me. I know." Byers smiled. "Keep in touch."

"You too. Be careful."

**

J. Wayne begged off, looking faintly furtive, but Frohike dismissed it and went alone for beer, pizza, a couple of movies, and the easy companionship of his favorite (male, anyhow) FBI agent. With the green peppers/anchovies issue thoroughly hashed out, they settled together on the couch in casual bare feet and awaited the arrival of dinner. Mulder'd already changed into a t-shirt and sweatpants, which was sort of a disappointment for Frohike, who did enjoy a nice bit of blue-jeaned scenery. 

Mulder'd gotten released, Saturday afternoon, from four days in biohazard quarantine, and spent all day writing a report that wasn't going to be well-received by Skinner. It'd be at least midnight before he'd relax much, Frohike knew. But after four days in quarantine, nobody was expecting him in on the dot Monday morning. Frohike had plenty of time to see what he could do about the fact that the agent was almost vibrating with stress. He slung an arm around Mulder's neck and leaned against him. 

"Four days. You should've called me," he scolded mildly. "I'd have fed your fish and watered that fern you keep trying to kill."

"I called you as soon as they turned me loose yesterday. Anyway, it wasn't necessary."

"You killed the fern? And the fish?"

"Fishes. Fish is plural for one species. Fishes is plural for several species. I have three angels and a bunch of different tetras. I have fishes. If I had four guppies, I'd have fish."

"If you had four guppies, you'd have schools of fish before too long. And I believe the question was, do you now have _floaters_?"

"I didn't kill them. I left a note on the tank before I headed out of town."

Frohike looked over. "Can't read it. What's it say?"

Mulder snickered. "It just asks whoever breaks in to feed the fish and water the fern."

Frohike sighed. "You're nuts."

"Yeah, but they did."

Frohike pulled away slightly. " _Who_ did?"

Mulder shrugged. "Krycek, maybe."

Frohike covered his eyes with his hand. "Don't tell me anything else. I'm going to assume it was actually Scully."

"Assume away. But whoever it was also brought up my mail and swiped my copy of _Celebrity Skin_."

"You're right. That doesn't sound much like Scully."

Mulder shook his head. "Not really, no. She'd have replaced it with _National Geographic_ , and turned my fishes over to the SPCA."

"I don't want to know. You never did tell me what the case was. And why the hell were you in quarantine this time?"

Mulder sighed. "You want the highlights, or the whole story."

"Start with the highlights."

"The highlights. Killer orchids do it for you?"

Frohike raised eyebrows. "Killer orchids?"

"Sort of. This stupid blue orchid releases pollen that makes guys nuts—"

"You must've gotten a snoot-full," Frohike grinned.

"You wish. It's like super-Viagra or something."

"I _do_ wish. So who's dying?"

Mulder sighed again. "Okay. Last month, we had guys turning up dead in South Carolina, I think I mentioned that at least. And they're blue, and naked, and appear to have died from anaphylactic shock."

"Naked blue corpses. It's like snuff flicks for Smurfs. I can see why you were called in, Spooky."

"Fuck you."

"We'll get to that. Finish your story, Mulder."

Mulder snickered and shifted so that his back was to the older man. Frohike dug in and started to work at the knots in his shoulders. "Oh, God, that feels good."

"Finish your story or I'll stop."

"You're always ordering me around."

"Hey, I'm the top, remember?"

"How could I forget."

"Finish your story, Mulder," Frohike said again, a little less patiently.

"Ahh…" He stretched into the strong hands. "Okay. The weird thing is, all these guys died on the same day, though of course we didn't find a couple of the bodies until a few days after."

"Oh, goody. I bet they were ripe by then."

Mulder grimaced. "Ripe is not the word for it. It's fucking hot down there."

"And humid."

"Believe me, I know. So maybe we have some kind of spree-poisoner, they think, which is where I come in."

"Scully go with you?"

"Yes. She was giving me 'Well, it could be an infestation of a new species of spider, or possibly it's a new strain of hantavirus, and of course you know Mulder there have been reports of mildew'—"

"Mildew? In South Carolina? In July?"

"June. And it's the humidity, remember, not the heat. And it turns out she was about half-right. Are you going to let me tell this?"

Frohike moved one hand up to the agent's neck. "You're bitchy tonight."

Mulder sighed and deflated. "Sorry. It's been a really shitty week."

"You're forgiven, I suppose. Go on."

"Thank you. So the connection is, these guys, their wives are all members of the garden club, a garden club they've got down there."

"Let me guess. Orchids."

"Yeah."

"Cult?"

"Not quite. The orchids in question were owned by a woman who decided to share them around."

"That's friendly."

"Well, it wasn't deliberate. The sharing was, but basically these men all died by accident. She kept the orchids in her greenhouse." Mulder stopped, and shifted towards Frohike a little more. "What do you know about cultivating orchids, Fro?"

"Assume I'm ignorant of the subject."

"So was I. It seems that orchid seeds are really tiny little things—"

"Is that scientific terminology?"

"Yeah. 'Tiny' is bigger than 'itty-bitty' but smaller than 'teensy'."

Frohike snickered. "I'll keep that in mind." One hand started to work its way under Mulder's shirt, which audibly met with approval.

"Mm. Okay. The seeds are really small, and in order to germinate, they have to form a symbiotic relationship, apparently, with a fungus, which starts growing roots, sort of, that absorb water, which I'm told the seed can't do by itself."

"I can see why Skinner's gonna freak."

"Which part?"

"Your fine grasp of the scientific details involved. Why didn't Scully write the report? She knows more biology than you do."

"It was my turn."

"Ah. Lost another bet?"

Mulder sighed again. "No. But she wasn't going to touch the bodies otherwise. She's a brilliant woman, and a doctor of enormous skill, and I respect her talent greatly, but she has this thing, apparently, about blue snot."

Frohike snorted. "I can't begin to imagine how often that comes up."

"We had it in some quantity in this case. Anyway—keep doing that, okay?—it seems that different species of orchids need different types of fungi."

"Okay. And you got some kind of mutant strain from all the varieties?"

"No, it was a normal fungus, but from a different species of orchid. Which created, essentially, a mutant hybrid of the orchid. Making it much stronger than it originally was, and leading to the allergic reactions and the deaths. The worst part was the fight between the orchid-pusher and one of the forensic techs, who turns out to be an orchid buff himself, for the opportunity to name the thing. While they were going at it, one of the wives, excuse me, _widows_ , sneaked off and had it registered as a _Cattleya bowringiana_ 'Trixsemptia' with something called 'Sander's List'. Evidently blue orchids are a rare and much sought-after variety."

"Who're you quoting?"

"Gary Sabro, the tech."

Frohike pondered it for a moment. "So why's Skinner going to be mad?"

"Because nine of our fourteen dead men, _naked and blue_ dead men, remember, are very prominent men in South Carolina. Very prominent corpses, at any rate. A little to the left? Including the father of a state senator."

"And the FBI gets to explain that it was Smurf-death-by-mutant-orchid."

"Mutant _aphrodisiac_ orchid."

"He was hoping for a spree-poisoner, was he?"

"Yes. It didn't help that the orchid-pusher was the granddaughter of a federal judge."

"I suppose it wouldn't, no. I gather you were not directly exposed?"

"No. But you know how Scully is."

"Haven't had the pleasure. Was she quarantined too?"

"Twenty-four hours. The allergy is a sex-linked trait, apparently."

Frohike kissed the nearest shoulder. "I'm glad you weren't exposed."

Mulder laughed. "I knew you cared."

"Of course I care. What the hell else would I do with my Saturday nights?"

Mulder would probably have lapsed into a pout if the pizza hadn't come.

As they settled in with bottles and slices, Frohike commented idly, "Actually, you may be the one who has to worry about Saturday nights, at least for a while."

"Why's that?"

"The boys and I are headed to Washington State again."

This time Mulder _did_ pout, and Frohike managed to not throw down his beer and fuck the agent on his coffee table. It was a struggle, but the coffee table was probably sticky enough as it was. Mulder wasn't much of a housekeeper. "More bear poachers?"

Frohike shrugged and swallowed as the pout melted like a retreating Ice Age. "Nothing so conventional."

"Bigfoot?"

"Bigfoot is a hoax, Mulder, you know that. No. UFOs and Men in Black."

Mulder gave him a look over his bottle. "Maury Island?"

Frohike nodded, catching strings of cheese. "Yeah. How'd you know?"

"Four days in quarantine. I caught up on my mail."

They chewed and drank with a vicious nonchalance for several minutes, until Frohike gave in. "What's your mail say?"

"Nothing much." The smirk was a long way from the pout, but it wasn't bad, as scenery went.

Frohike sighed. "Smugness does not become you, Mulder."

Mulder grinned. "The hell you say. I'll show you mine if you show me yours."

"That's probably not the lamest line you use on me, but I think it makes the list."

"It always works, though."

"I'm a romantic."

"And a sucker for a nice ass."

"True. Tell me what you know, and give me a chance to eat some more of the pizza before you devour the rest of it."

Mulder laughed and stood up, heading for the kitchen and more beer. He came back and handed one to Mel. "I'm a selfish bastard."

"Also true. Spill, buddy."

"UFOs and light shows, mutes and ghosts and missing time…" Mulder chanted in a sing-song as he sprawled against Frohike again. Frohike moved his arm and Mulder slid his head into Frohike's lap, gazing up at the Gunman.

"Ghosts?" Frohike asked. A slice of olive fell and Mulder caught it. Frohike admired the reflexes and the glimpse of tongue.

"Apparently. Residual effect, I suspect."

"No Bigfoot?"

"Bigfoot is a hoax, Mel, you know that."

Frohike played with the thick dark hair with his free hand. "Just because I'm not gonna go hunting him, doesn't mean people don't report him."

"True. But as far as I know, no. Though there was a sighting of 'Colossal Claude'."

"Colossal Claude?"

Mulder shrugged, making Frohike twitch. "Sea monster." Mulder thought about it. "Sound monster, anyway."

"I should've guessed. What kind of UFOs?"

Mulder grinned. "You tell me."

"Deltas."

Mulder nodded, getting another twitch out of Frohike. "Deltas and wedges. Boomerangs."

"Hudson Valley stuff."

Mulder nodded again. "How's the story coming?"

Frohike shook his head. "Still chasing rumors."

"After almost a year? I still think it's bullshit, Fro. Nobody's screwing with Invisibility anymore. Not after Eldridge."

"I'm starting to think you're right. But Byers isn't gonna let this one go."

"No, I suppose not."

Frohike grabbed a napkin and wiped sauce off his fingers before twining them back into Mulder's hair. "I'd have thought quarantine would at least be restful."

Mulder snorted. "You've never been, obviously. People in spacesuits come in every half hour to draw blood and take your temperature and blood pressure and mutter over you like you were the guest of honor at a wake. Restful it is not."

"And Scully set you up for this?"

"Yep. She's an evil woman."

"Tell me more," Frohike leered.

"She's vowed to shoot me again if I tell you her new phone number, you know."

"We don't want that." Frohike traced the scar under Mulder's shirt with delicate fingers. "How does she know I didn't find it myself?"

"Feminine intuition, I suppose." He pushed the hand aside and stretched his arms over his head, casually settling them around Frohike's waist.

"She hasn't got much respect for my kung-fu."

Mulder grinned up at him. "Oh, but I do."

"Hey, once you've gotten a taste of Frohike…"

Mulder wriggled against him. "I could go for another bite."

Frohike pulled back. "No way, buster. Last time, you left a mark that had the boys smirking at me for a week."

Mulder laughed and let go long enough to take his shirt off. "They're just jealous."

Frohike's hands followed it up, tracing along the soft skin. "Mm. What could they possibly have to be jealous of?"

Mulder worked Frohike's shirt loose from his jeans and slipped a hand underneath, playing with the buttons. "There's always Colossal Claude."

Frohike snorted. "That's at the top of the lame list now."

"I didn't think it was that lame."

"Inexcusably lame, Mulder. _Dog_ lame."

Mulder sighed and stretched one hand around to Frohike's back, expertly slipping the older man's belt loose.

"Don't think I don't know what you're doing."

"What am I doing," Mulder mumbled against his chest.

"You're hoping to have your way with me."

"Why would you ever think that?"

Frohike laughed. "You paid for dinner."

"Good point. Are you gonna take your shirt off, or do I have to work around it?"

"Let's see you try to work around it."

"I paid for dinner, remember."

"I paid last time."

"And, as I recall, you had your way with me."

"Yeah, but you're a slut, Mulder. I can't be had for the price of pizza and cheap beer."

"If I get Kirin next week, can I have you now?"

Frohike thought about it. "Next week, I'll be enjoying microbrew."

"In the rain."

"It _is_ July, Mulder."

"In Seattle."

"I suppose if I don't let you work your wiles on me, you'll spend the next week pouting."

"And with no one here to see it."

Frohike let out a resigned sigh. "Okay. Just don't go telling the boys in the locker room tomorrow that I let you feel me up."

"Deal." Mulder waited until he had Frohike making the noises that signaled an abrupt loss of IQ, and then pulled his hands away slightly. "So what are you hearing from Washington?"

"What?" 

"Washington, Mel. Why're you going?"

Frohike did his best to remember without being distracted from the ear in front of him. "Ummm. J. Wayne asked for help."

"You what?" Mulder demanded.

Frohike shrugged but didn't bother to stop licking the skin below Mulder's ear. "J. Wayne. You remember."

"Do I," Mulder said with feeling. "What's J. Wayne doing in Washington?"

"He's not, yet. He's out here. Turned up on our doorstep Thursday night. Before I know it, we're planning the trip and trying to shut Langly up about how cold he was last time. We're flying out Tuesday."

"So how long will you be gone?"

"Long as it takes, G-Man," Frohike mumbled, nibbling at Mulder's neck. He wasn't entirely sure whether Mulder's moan represented arousal or depression. He tried it again, and got the same result. "Just checking."

"Checking?"

"Nothing. I don't know how long we'll be gone," he told Mulder's earlobe. "The boys and Jimmy are already headed out there in the van. It's not like me and J. Wayne will be alone."

Mulder sighed faintly. "It sounds like you already have been." He could feel the grin. 

"Why, Mulder," Frohike said with mock surprise. "Are you jealous?"

"Shit yeah," he said as Frohike started to chuckle. "He's a hell of a cute kid."

Frohike bit his neck, not gently, and Mulder yelped. "Asshole." 

Mulder laughed. "So is he any good?"

"Dunno," Frohike said, kissing the red mark he'd left. "Yet," he added.

Mulder pulled away as much as possible and went into Serious Pout mode. Frohike chuckled and yanked him back close. "Who knows, maybe you'll find out first. He sure hasn't forgotten you, either."

"Mmm," Mulder sighed. "Do that again, Fro. I always wanted to be a talent scout," he said absent-mindedly. 

"I thought you always wanted to be a cabaret girl."

"I'm flexible," he said, squirming out of his sweats.

Frohike remembered to breathe. "Oh, believe me, Mulder, I _do_ know."

"So he brought you this story?" Mulder had gone to work on his jeans. "Out of the blue?"

"Hmm?"

"J. Wayne. He brought you this story?"

Frohike tried to concentrate. "Yeah, um. He thought we could help. Maybe print it if it's any good."

"What do you know about hangingflies, Mel?" Mulder asked his collarbone.

"If this involves little nooses, Mulder—"

Mulder laughed, making Frohike shiver against him. "No… The Order Mecoptera. When it's mating season, the male hangingfly offers the female a dower, a courtship gift."

"Fascinating," Frohike breathed, with a certain amount of irony. He pushed the agent back and did his best to distract him.

"You have the most talented hands, Fro… The dower is an insect the male caught, and while the female is eating it, the male mates with her."

"You're saying the story is a tasty bug?"

"A tasty bug?"

"Something's pretty tasty."

"Dog lame, Frohike."

"I learned from the master."

Mulder put his hand on the back of Frohike's head. "Less banter."

"I'm just trying to take an interest. So this story's a bug? A dower?"

Mulder moaned and slumped back even farther against the couch. "He might be trying to lure you into sexual congress, yes."

"And why on earth," Frohike mused, "would anyone think I was at all susceptible to luring?" He squinted up at Mulder. "I wonder if he talks about bugs in bed. Or on the couch, for that matter."

"Good point. I'll stop being jealous. He hasn't got a chance with you."

Frohike heaved a martyred sigh. "You're a total fruitbat, Mulder."

"Mm. Say it like you mean it. What most people don't know about mecopterans is that while they currently are only about a hundredth of a percent of the extant species, in the past they were significantly more numerous…"

Frohike had been trying to concentrate, but he couldn't stop the sarcasm. "Most people don't know that? No kidding?"

"Jesus, don't stop—" Mulder's fingers dug into Frohike's back and shoulders. "Yeah—Oh yeah!—They're about forty percent of the discovered fossils in the Permian beds of Kansas."

"I'll keep that in mind."

Mulder's control was slipping. "Decorated crickets…" he panted. "Decorated crickets…"

"Crickets now?"

Mulder whimpered. "Please, _please_ do that again." 

"Are you gonna stop talking?"

"Whatever happened to 'smart is sexy'?"

"Smart may be sexy, Mulder, but weird is just weird." The lower lip started to creep forward, and Frohike took his glasses off.

"What are you doing?"

"Neutralizing your secret weapon." He leaned back down and tried nibbling for a change.

Mulder groaned softly. "Fuck. J. Wayne should be this lucky."

"Maybe he will be," Frohike mumbled around his mouthful.

"You think he'd mind sharing?" Mulder slid a leg up over Frohike's shoulder. "Decorated crickets make their own dowers."

Frohike moved off a bit. "They put together tiny quilts?"

"No… No—Oh, yes!—mmm. No. They secrete a gelatinous glob called a spermatophylax, for the female to eat."

"Mulder, for Chrissakes."

"The spermatophylax surrounds the ampulla that holds the spermatozoa..."

"You _have_ to stop watching the Discovery Channel."

"…and the male glues the whole thing to her…"

"Congratulations."

"Hmm?"

"You've finally found a species with weirder mating habits than yours."

"Oh, fuck, Mel. I think—"

Frohike cut him off. "If you say it, I'm stopping right now."

Mulder laughed raggedly. "Anything. Please don't stop." His fingers moved restlessly on Frohike's scalp and when that willing mouth descended on him again, all he could do was buck into it and swear weakly as he came.

Much faster than Frohike would have thought him capable of it, Mulder did—something—and Frohike found himself tossed across the coffee table, _Victoria's Secret_ digging into his back. It stopped mattering almost immediately, when Mulder spread himself across the smaller man and yanked his head up for a kiss that didn't stop until they had both run out of oxygen.

"Fuck," Frohike gasped. "You're trying to kill me."

Mulder laughed breathlessly and moved off Frohike's chest. "Then I can have J. Wayne all to myself. He's staying with you guys?"

Frohike ran a hand over his own scalp and licked his lips. "No… He's in a hotel…"

"Which one?"

"You do that again, and I'll never tell."

Mulder moved his hand down Frohike's belly. "What if I do this?"

Frohike managed to laugh. "Go ahead. I'm not grassing."

Mulder snickered and squeezed lightly. "We have ways of making you talk, you know."

"Name two."

"I'm gonna get out my Junior G-Man Fingerprint Kit and see just where the kid's been putting his hands."

"He's too smart to leave evidence, Mulder."

"Then you won't object to a search."

"You have a warrant?"

Mulder grinned. "I have a gun."

Frohike rolled off the table, landing mostly on top of Mulder. He tangled his hands back into the silky hair. "And _I_ have Fourth Amendment rights."

Mulder reached up and grabbed a hand. "I don't think you have an expectation of privacy in my apartment."

Mel sighed and buried his face in Mulder's neck. "Mulder, _nobody_ has an expectation of privacy in your fucking apartment. People line up just to break into this place."

Mulder laughed. "The rent isn't bad, anyway. And there's always someone to feed my fish."

"Fishes," Mel mumbled against his ear.

"Hmm?"

"Fishes. Not fish. I _do_ listen to you, you know."

"Only while I'm fully clothed."

"You were barefoot."

"True. If the kids are gone, and J. Wayne's in town, why didn't you two invite me over? It's not like anyone ever breaks into your place," he snickered.

"I think we still have a better record than you do. I did invite him. He said no."

"He said no?"

"He looked pretty nervous."

"I make him nervous?"

Frohike got to his feet and held his hand out. "Mulder, you make _me_ nervous. Come on. Your couch is way too small if we're going to be wrestling."

Mulder took the hand, smiling. "I even shoveled all the paperwork off my bed for you. I know how picky you are about these things."

"I'll get you trained yet," Frohike said, making sure the door was locked, for all the good it would do, and turning off the light. He heard Mulder come up behind him.

"That sounds like fun," he said, running his hands across Frohike's back. "More fun than wrestling, anyway."

Frohike put his hand on Mulder's arm and spun him at the end of his reach toward the bedroom, pulling himself close. "Those aren't our only options."

Mulder moved with him. "I can't believe I had to find out from Langly that you dance."

Frohike tried to look innocent, not easy while sporting only fingerless gloves and a hard-on. "You never asked."

Mulder smiled. "Has J. Wayne asked?"

"Nope."

"He doesn't know what he's missing."

Frohike grinned. "Is that an endorsement?"

"Anytime you need a reference, Mel…"

"But not Scully," they said together.

Mel brushed soft fingers down Mulder's chest. "I'll change your mind someday," he laughed.

"I'm not sharing you with her. She can find her own dates."

"There's enough of me to go around."

Mulder leaned down and kissed his neck. "I'm insatiable, remember?"

Frohike chuckled. "I think I'm being reminded, yes. C'mon, Big Guy. Let's see what we can do about that."

Mulder practically dragged him into the bedroom and sprawled wantonly across the bed, watching him with lust-darkened eyes. Frohike took his time, kneeling next to Mulder and slowly, very slowly, working his fingers into him. Between quiet noises of intense pleasure, Mulder managed to confine his conversation to the—alarmingly detailed—list of things he seemed to be hoping Frohike would do to him within the next several hours. At some point Mel found himself laughing softly against the younger man's chest.

"You're such a pervert, Mulder," he said fondly.

Mulder leaned back and exposed his neck to messy kisses. "One of my many charms."

Frohike laughed. "You have a great ass, you're a pervert, and you pay for dinner half the time. I only count three."

"What about my stimulating banter?"

"This is probably going to crush you, Mulder, but you're hot _despite_ your tendency to lecture me about free radicals during sex, not because of it."

"You're right, I'm crushed."

"Sorry. Maybe I can make it up to you."

Mulder sighed contentedly. "You have anything in mind?"

Frohike reached down and stroked him casually. "In hand."

Mulder arched against him, half-whimpering. "Oh, God. God, you have great hands. Oh—" He lapsed into another elaborate fantasy, and Frohike half-listened, marveling at Mulder's inventiveness.

"Mulder," he said finally.

"Mmm—hm? Oh, fuck, don't stop, _please_."

Frohike rested his elbow on Mulder's chest and looked him in the eye. "Play-Doh, Mulder?" he asked incredulously.

Mulder laughed raggedly. "Or cookie dough. Do that again."

"That's unhygienic."

"So? _Please_ do that again."

Frohike sighed. "How in the name of God did you ever get past the FBI's psych tests?"

"Memorized the answers. _Please_?"

"No, but I'll do something else if you promise to stop making obscene suggestions at me."

"The Mr. Bubble is obscene. Play-Doh is just… whimsical."

"One man's opinion."

"No, really. Think about it. If you—"

"Mulder," Frohike said, patiently. "Do you want to have a debate on the Freudian nature of cultural icons, or do you want me to fuck you?"

Mulder laughed. "Fuck me, Mel."

"As long as you're sure." He arranged a pillow under the younger man's hips and leaned in to kiss him hard before moving into position.

"Oh, fuck yes," Mulder said as soon as he could talk again, "I'm sure. Yes."

Mel wrapped his gloved hand around Mulder's cock as he slid into him. Mulder shuddered violently and pushed himself against Mel as much as possible.

"Mel…" Mulder groaned. "I'll pay for dinner next time, too."

Frohike half-laughed, and concentrated on driving Mulder crazy. It was so easy it gave him time to think. "Mulder?" His only reply was a soft, heartfelt moan. He pulled out of the younger man and held himself there. "Mulder."

Mulder whimpered. " _What_?"

Frohike grinned in the soft light. "What _kind_ of tasty bug?" He could _feel_ Mulder's confusion. 

"What?"

"What kind of tasty bug do you think the kid's brought us?"

"Oh… I dunno. Fuck me, Frohike."

"In a minute. You've got me curious."

Mulder got himself together with a superhuman effort. "With hangingflies it's usually a plump, juicy fly. _Please_ fuck me?"

"You started this." Mel considered it. "But I get to _have_ the bug, right?"

"What? Yes. Yes, whatever you want. Jesus."

"I mean," Frohike was getting a perverse pleasure from this. "I'd get to _eat_ the bug. It's not just a trick to get me to mate?"

"I hate you."

"Okay, but…?"

"Yes. Okay? Yes. The male lets the female eat most of the bug before he tries to mate. Okay?"

"That's all I wanted to know."

"Jesus," Mulder said again. "I swear I'll never talk in bed again."

"I'd love to believe that."

"Fuck me already," Mulder begged.

Frohike didn't move. "Are you sure?"

" _What_?"

"Are you sure that's what you want?" Frohike persisted, enjoying himself immensely. "There aren't any other fascinating facts about insects you'd like to offer? Because I was starting to get into it. I mean, if you wanted to explain to me why female black widows eat their mates or anything, this would be an ideal time."

Mulder suddenly pushed him off and rolled on top of him. "I don't know why female black widows eat their mates, Mel, but I'm starting to understand why male FBI agents shoot theirs," he said darkly.

Frohike started to laugh, and it was several minutes before Mulder could stop him, which he finally managed by shoving his tongue down Frohike's throat. When he came up for air, he glowered at the older man. "Don't make me get my gun."

Frohike, still chuckling softly, grabbed his hair and dragged him close again. "That's kinky even for you, Mulder. Do they teach you that at Quantico?"

Mulder shook his head against Mel's cheek. "Nobody ever planned for you, Fro."

Mel grinned. "Nobody ever has."

"I sure didn't," Mulder said softly.

"You're not gonna get sappy on me now, are you?" Frohike demanded suspiciously. Occasionally Mulder strayed too close to declarations of something other than affection. Mel was more-or-less fine with the sentiment, but could do without the vocalization of it.

Mulder turned his head and looked into his eyes. "Wouldn't dream of it," he smiled. " _Now_ will you fuck me?"

"Hey, you're on top."

Mulder held his shoulders and flipped them back over. "I'm a bottom at heart."

Mel laughed a little breathlessly. "You're just lazy."

"Also naked, begging, and mere seconds away from pouting."

"Holy God."

"I don't _need_ a gun."

"Considering how often you drop it, that's probably a good thing."

"Okay, that's it. I'm officially pouting." Which he did for about three seconds, before Mel thrust deeply into him. Mulder shook with it. "Holy God," he gasped.

Frohike grinned and drove himself deeper. "Yeah," he panted. "That pout is lethal."

Mulder moaned and tried to pull him as close as possible. "J. Wayne doesn't know what he's missing."

"Yet."

"You think…" Mulder arched against him, struggling for every breath, "…think he'd mind—oh, shit, Mel, harder—if I watched?" 

The gloved hand slid across the other man's shoulder. "I'll be sure to ask." He felt Mulder's length thicken in his hand and opened his eyes to watch as he drove him to a frenzied orgasm. The younger man threw his head back and cried out harshly. The sight pushed Mel over the precipice as well, and he was groaning Mulder's name as he buried himself once more and came.

Eventually he pulled himself up and off Mulder, sprawling next to him. "Holy God," he said again, kissing Mulder's chest. "J. Wayne should be _this_ lucky."

Mulder laughed a little. "What'd you think I was going to say?"

"Hmm?" Frohike was drifting, warm and sated.

"When you told me not to say it."

Mel sighed, but there was less exasperation in it than usual. "Mulder, I know you don't pay that much attention, but I tell you not to say a _lot_ of things while we're fucking."

"When you were going down on me, and threatened to stop."

Frohike thought back. "Oh, that."

"What'd you think I was going to say?"

"We both know exactly what you were going to say."

Mulder grinned lazily. "It would've been funny."

"Mulder, if you had said what you were going to say, I'd never have been able to swallow again."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Up: Caffeine, Conspiracies, and the Fortean Nature of Fishes V: Mutes: It's What's For Dinner: In which our travelers make the dreaded and tense trip through Wisconsin, where they catch up with an old acquaintance, and on into Minnesota, where an old acquaintance catches up with them in a sinister encounter, as part of the larger conspiracy becomes revealed


	5. Mutes: It's What's For Dinner

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm going down to Cowtown, the cow's a friend to me…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I continue to exploit and offend without permission. I'm very sorry, but obviously not so sorry I'm going to stop doing it. The Beef Council slogan is parodied without permission, and the summary in this part is from TMBG's song "Cowtown". I've also used the lyrics from Coal Chamber's "Big Truck" without permission, but at least I didn't actually _quote_ the Neil Young song, which is best known by its other name, "Computer Cowboy". Langly may not like Wisconsin (Unofficial State Motto: "Eat Cheese and Nobody Has to Get Hurt.") but I do. Regardless of how I mistreat it in this part. Drose and Marvel and Rhinehart are mine, also from "Weekend". The Blue Thing is _not_ mine. Someone may have made it up, but it wasn't me. The fact that the Blue Thing is engaged in such an odd activity is the result of what the UFOlogists call "merging" (and what the psychiatrists call "boundary-deficit disorder") on my part, but other than that the Blue Thing is represented faithfully to the original reports. (And even etheric entities probably need a hobby.) I did make up the specific instances of cattle mutilations, and also the additional Wow Signals (there was really only ever the one), though Ehman is real and is doing what he is reported by Byers to be doing. In my own defense, CC made up additional Wow Signals long before I got around to it.
> 
> Spoilers: I've managed to kind of ruin the final portions of the XF ep "Little Green Men", just on the off chance you somehow missed that one.

With a little more sleep under them, all three of them felt better Monday morning. Langly wasn't delighted with the prospect of driving through Wisconsin, but Byers kept the Snickers coming, and it, and the new CDs, seemed to help immeasurably. Jimmy was restrained from cow jokes with the threat of further revelations to Yves. He continued to whisper "Frink" every few minutes, though, until Byers glared at him. The whole cow thing was starting to get to Byers.

They had just crossed into Wisconsin when Jimmy suddenly said "Weird."

It wasn't a "Frink", which made Byers look across. What he saw made him pull the van off the road. "Oh my God," he said. "Langly, you've gotta see this. Jimmy, the camera." He climbed out of the driver's seat and walked around the front of the bus, eyes on a distant part of the omnipresent cow pasture. 

Jimmy finally tumbled out with camera in hand, followed by Langly, who said "cows" very quietly. Byers pointed and Langly forgot the cows.

"Holy shit."

"Yeah," Byers agreed. "You know what we're looking at?"

Jimmy handed him the camera. "A weird blue thing?"

Byers shook his head and tried to focus clearly. "Not just _a_ blue thing, Jimmy. _The_ Blue Thing of Wisconsin."

Byers took a couple of shots, hoping like hell they'd come out. The Blue Thing, looking very much as it had been described, a person-height amorphous gray blue… thing, gliding through the field at the edge of a wood. As the Blue Thing slid smoothly along, there was time to notice that the trees could be seen through it, like looking through colored smoke. But it held its shape, and it moved along, rather than upwards. 

Byers held the camera steady despite the tingling along his nerves. The others seemed to share his sense of unease. 

"Creepy," Langly hissed as Byers snapped more shots.

"I think I liked the Frog thing better," Jimmy said nervously.

The Blue Thing moved past a cow, which seemed to collapse silently when it was touched. Then the Blue Thing seemed to shift direction and slipped without a sound into the wood.

"Maybe it was just someone walking," Jimmy offered, but not in a tone that suggested he believed it.

"It wasn't walking," Langly insisted. "It was gliding. And it wasn't touching the ground. You saw that. Don't tell me it was somebody walking. And it did something to that cow. And let's get the fuck out of here, okay?"

"Wait here," Byers told them, looking intently at the camera's display. He stepped to the barbed-wire fence separating them from the pasture, and climbed over it carefully, incongruous in his sharp suit.

"Johnny!" Langly yelped, but it didn't stop the older man. 

Jimmy patted his arm. "Hang on. I'll go with him, okay? You stay here and don't let anybody steal the Mobile Command Unit."

Langly watched anxiously as Jimmy ran to catch up to Byers, and they both continued across the pasture, picking their way delicately through cow patties. At the edge of the wood, where the Blue Thing had been moving, they both leaned down to look at the stricken cow. Langly stood and hoped the Blue Thing wouldn't return, hoped he'd be able to keep from panicking long enough to yell a warning if it did. His lover pulled this kind of shit all the time, and Langly doubted he'd ever get used to it. If the Blue Thing didn't kill them, Langly was seriously going to give it a shot.

Unwilling to take his eyes off them and the woods behind them long enough to find the binoculars, he tried to make out what they were doing. Langly watched Byers take pictures, and thought back to what J. Wayne had said about the mutilations. Finally, Byers backed away, and Jimmy leaned down and pushed the cow over in some way so that it appeared to be sitting. Byers took another couple of shots, and then walked to the place where the Blue Thing had disappeared. Langly held his breath long enough to turn a little blue himself. Byers took a couple more pictures.

After about a hundred years, Byers and Jimmy started back across the pasture, and Langly breathed a faint sigh of relief. As they came closer, they were arguing about something, but Langly couldn't quite catch what. Byers glanced up and saw him, and gave him an all-clear sign. 

When they got to the fence, Langly helped him over, then shoved him against the side of the van and kissed him hard. Once he broke away, Byers stared at him, ignoring Jimmy's snickers. "It's okay, Ringo. Really," he said calmly. "Relax. We're fine."

Langly exhaled noisily and put his forehead against Byers' chest. "You're a fucking asshole, Johnny. You gotta stop doing this crap, okay?"

Byers put his arms around the younger man's shoulders and kissed his hair. "It's okay, really. We're fine. But Wisconsin probably isn't the best place for a PDA."

Langly gave an exasperated laugh. "Get in the fucking van, John. Jimmy, shut up and drive, willya?"

Jimmy obliged cheerfully enough. When the radio came on, he started singing along with Neil Young's "Syscrusher". Langly didn't even snipe at him, so he left the station where it was.

It took nearly twenty minutes before Langly let go of Byers long enough to ask. "Okay, so what the fuck was it out there?"

Byers sighed and found the camera. "You're not going to like it."

"Well, shit. Nothing new there."

Byers handed the camera to Langly. "Shit is right."

Langly flipped through the images. "Great. This looks like smoke, John. Nobody's gonna buy it."

"Keep going."

Langly stopped and looked up. "Mute?"

Byers shook his head. "Nothing so conventional. Just look."

Langly braced himself and then checked the rest of the pictures. He looked up at Byers with a distant expression. "What the fuck?"

"Just what it looks like."

"Yeah, but…" Langly stared at the image again. "You know what this is?"

Byers nodded.

Jimmy couldn't take it anymore. "Okay, so what is it? The cow isn't all cut up or even dead or anything, so why are you guys both so freaked?"

Langly sighed and flopped back against his seat. "The Wisconsin Blue Thing is a cow-tipper."

**

About an hour after they'd stopped for lunch, with Jimmy driving and Byers beside him, they heard loud noises. Byers glanced up, and saw three huge black helicopters moving south fast. He watched for the few bare seconds they were in sight, but there was no way of following them, and no chance of getting pictures.

"Wonder what's going on," Jimmy said.

"Hmm?" Byers was still thinking about it.

"Those are news guys, right?"

Byers blinked. "No, I don't think so. News copters usually put their station number all over them." He paused and stared at the sky. "Like, uh, that, actually."

This one definitely was a news team, it was white, with the number seven all over it in bright red, and call letters on the sides. It was headed north almost as fast as the black ones.

"So I wonder what's going on," Jimmy said.

Byers shrugged. "No way to tell."

They rounded a corner and stared. "Pull over, Jimmy."

Jimmy managed to find room for the van on the side of the road.

Byers glanced back at Langly, who was apparently napping. "Stay here, okay? I want to see what's up."

Jimmy nodded. 

He was halfway over the barbed wire when he heard a voice from the pasture. "Byers! John Byers! What the hell are you guys doing here?"

Startled, he nearly fell on top of the fence. A figure detached itself from the knot standing fifty feet away and came towards him. As it got closer, he realized who it was. "Marvel?"

"So what's 'Gunman' doing in the middle of Wisconsin?" The tall man grinned widely at him.

Byers smiled. "Passing through. What's the commotion?"

Marvel grinned wider and resettled his fedora at a rakish angle. "Drose dragged me out. Cattle mutilations all over the state this week."

"We saw the helicopters about twenty minutes ago…"

"Yeah. They've been photographed, videotaped, and reported all over the state, too. As far as I know, everybody but the air force and aviation control has seen the damned things. Where's Mel?"

"Not along this trip. Me, Langly, and Jimmy."

"Mr. Bond, I presume?" Marvel laughed. "Drose'll be _really_ happy to see Jimmy."

Byers chuckled. "I don't think he's Jimmy's type."

Marvel pounded him on the back. "And that's the only reason _I'm_ ever happy to see Jimmy." Marvel shouldered aside some of the reporters standing around, and dragged Byers into the thick of things. "Hey, Drose. Looky who's here!"

Byers gazed at the object of everyone's attention. "Oh, my."

An older man crouched by the carcass glanced up at them. "Neatly put as usual, John. How are you?"

Byers nodded at him, still cataloguing the site before him. "Fine. How have you been?"

"Busy, busy," Drose chuckled, standing up. He peeled off a glove and offered a hand. "What brings you out to Wisconsin, my lad?"

"Passing through."

Drose glanced around. "In which direction? Your boy didn't come? Or is he hiding in that behemoth of yours lest he spot a ruminant?"

Byers laughed a little. "Very perceptive."

"And Mel?"

"Not along this trip."

Drose looked back to Marvel. "Get some pictures of the others, heads and udders. Skin samples, hair. With follicles this time. Don't just let that stupid boy do it. You know what I need, Marvel." Marvel nodded, and Drose gestured towards the road again. "Let's talk, John."

Several of the reporters tried to get in with last minute questions. Marvel smiled politely at them. "Dr. Drose will be back to answer the rest of your questions in just a few minutes."

Drose laughed. "I hate it when he does that. Have you considered, John, that this suit may not be most appropriate for a cow pasture in the middle of nowhere?"

Byers smiled. "Marvel seems to pull it off well. But, no, I certainly wasn't expecting to be spending my day in pastures."

"You've seen the other sites?"

"No. We were just passing by and got curious, especially after we saw the black helicopters ten or fifteen miles back."

"Spotted those too, did you? You're headed west, of course."

Byers was surprised, a bit, but nodded. Lying to Drose was never going to make the list of the smartest things a journalist could do. And Byers wouldn't be at all surprised to get to Washington and discover that every alternative press organization in the country was already crawling all over the place in hopes of putting a Man in Black above the fold. He made a mental note to remind Frohike to make motel reservations soon. The amount of stuff piled in the van this time, there was no way any of them could sleep there, let alone all of them.

"We hear strange things from Maury Island," Drose mused. "You too?"

"Yes. UFOs and MIB."

"And cattle mutilations, which is why I'm headed there too, as soon as we check the other four sites here today, and the two in Montana. I hear unconfirmed reports from Idaho, though it seems the corpses, if corpses there were, have been disposed of. People never learn."

" _Very_ busy," Byers said. "Is it all in the Northern states?"

Drose shrugged. "Tucson, Roswell… I just got back from Socorro yesterday, and here I am already on the road again. And of course Minnesota is always good for a bloater or two. How goes the Eldridge story?"

Byers stopped abruptly. "What?"

Drose gazed at him and laughed. "Teach your grandmother to suck eggs, my boy. Nothing stays a secret from me long."

Byers acknowledged it a shade unhappily. "I thought we'd been discreet with our questions."

Drose clapped him lightly on the shoulder. "Of course. You needn't worry about the military knocking down your door. But I heard the same rumors you did, from the same place you did, and I knew _you'd_ take an interest, John."

Byers sighed. "I suppose." He started walking again.

"Don't worry. I've no interest in scooping you on this. We lack your kind of protection from the big boys. Have you heard from Dr. Rhinehart recently?"

"A few months ago."

"It might not be inappropriate for someone to take an interest in that, either."

Byers blinked. "He's missing?"

"'Absent' is perhaps a better word. Just something to keep in mind. Mel is tending the home fires?"

Byers laughed. "Not really, no. He's finishing up the issue, and he'll be flying out later."

"I look forward to seeing it. And him. I don't suppose you have any tips for an old man," Drose suggested slyly.

Byers considered it. " _Powder Keg_ may have been caught with their hand in the cookie jar."

Drose sighed. "They're an embarrassment. I hear their young Mr. Arthur has moved on to greener," he smiled and gestured around, "pastures."

Byers nodded. "He's flying out with Mel."

Drose beamed. "So he's with you now? That _is_ news."

"Not really, no. He's freelancing, for the moment."

"Ah. Tell me what you hear about the Wow Signals."

Byers gave it some thought. "I understand the Big Ear has been 'inspected' recently. And Ehman has rejoined the staff."

"You're holding out on me."

Byers smiled. "You mean Arecibo? Old news, unfortunately. The tapes were degaussed."

"Would your Agent Mulder consent to an interview?"

"I'll put in a good word for you," Byers promised.

Drose laughed. "I suspect it'd work better, John, if Mel did it for me. Jimmy Bond, good to see you again."

Jimmy shook his hand, grinning. "Hi, Drose. Are _these_ cows cut up or what?"

"Several of them, I'm delighted to inform you. I imagine you're anxious to keep moving," he leaned in the front door and waved to Langly, "or Marvel and I would invite you to dinner to discuss it with you."

Jimmy blushed and Langly snorted. 

"Well, then, boys. I know you must be on your way. I expect we'll be seeing you in Washington. Drive carefully, and please say hello to Mel and young Mr. Arthur for me." He paused and glanced at Byers. "Tell Mr. Arthur to send us his resume. Marvel and I could certainly make room for him."

Byers nodded and Langly laughed. "Say hi to Marvel."

"Of course. Good day."

They'd gone about ten miles when Jimmy suddenly said, "I think he thinks I'm cute."

Byers grinned.

Langly sighed. "Damn."

Jimmy looked from one to the other. "What?"

"You explain it," Byers said.

Langly turned pink. "I owe Johnny five bucks. He said you'd figure it out before the end of the year."

Jimmy thought about that. "I'm not _that_ dumb, guys," he said finally.

Langly snickered. "That's pretty much exactly what Byers said."

Byers blushed.

**

Mulder finally dragged his own, exhausted, carcass into work around two. Frohike had been up since their morning workout, and eventually prodded Mulder into verticality with the promise of lunch. Frohike had suggested, a little whimsically, that Mulder take some time off and go out west with them. 

"Maybe if you wiggle that great ass at him, Skinner'll call it an X-File."

Mulder snorted, and buried his nose in more coffee.

Frohike swung by the printers on the way home and picked up the run, pleased with how well it had come out. The China story came out fine, as did the expose on activistcash.com, the astroturf consumer website. Frohike made a note to talk with Byers about including a regular watch on corporate groups posing as citizens' alliances. The stuff they'd dug up on Berman & Co. while researching the story was potentially explosive. Byers' own article on the XY Conspiracy was densely enough layered with facts that Frohike figured it might have a shot at a journalism award. 

Even Jimmy's work with the Letters page was starting to look professional. Langly's column about the privatization of the broadcast spectrum was good, but it seemed to lack the kid's usual sense of outrage on behalf of the American people, and once again Frohike found himself wondering what the hell was happening out there. Byers would've told him if anything was wrong, he knew, but it did sound like things might be getting, well, weird.

But all in all, the issue looked damned good, and the web version was going to look even better, and they were all hoping it'd help increase circulation. Frohike hummed with the delight of the sexually- and professionally-satisfied conspiracist as he finished boxing them up for the trip to the post office tomorrow morning.

The phone rang in early evening. Frohike, humping the boxes out to Jimmy's car, let the recorders catch it.

"Hi, Mel. It's me, Wayne. Give me a call when you get in, and if you haven't got other plans, maybe we could have dinner together."

Frohike grinned a little to himself and went to call the kid back. On the way he passed several of the potted plants Jimmy had more success with killing ("Jimmy, it's a _warehouse_. No windows, okay? Plants need _light_.") than Mulder had, and made a note to dig up what he could on Mulder's orchid case. Maybe there was something they could use without getting the agent fired. It wasn't like he needed the help with that.

**

They stopped for dinner around six, at a small fish and chips place. Langly had insisted on anything but burgers, and after the scene in the pasture earlier, Byers had been happy to agree. Byers checked in with Frohike, who didn't seem much surprised to learn that _The Smoking Gun_ was headed for Seattle.

"Probably run into everybody out there, actually."

"We should make hotel reservations early," Byers commented.

"Good idea. The cheap places will all be taken if we wait too much longer."

"Cheap but clean, please."

"I know, I know. Any problems?"

"Not problems, as such, but this is definitely going down in my journal as one of the weirdest trips I've ever been on."

"Is this what you couldn't talk about last night? What'd you do, spot Bigfoot?"

"Bigfoot is a hoax, Fro. You know that. No… It was…"

"Just spit it out, Byers."

"The Loveland Frog."

"The _what_? Please tell me you didn't say what I think you said."

"I wish I could. Can you bring along the file on that, and the Juminda Incident? Juminda, Estonia."

"Juminda's a UFO sighting, isn't it?"

"I'm pretty sure there was a froglike humanoid mentioned in the reports."

"Hmm. Did you see a UFO?"

"No. I'm not sure they were aliens. But it's worth checking the cross-references. Unfortunately, it gets worse." Byers sighed and explained.

There was a long moment of silence, and then Frohike said, "You, uh, haven't been dipping into the Valium, have you, Byers?"

"Not yet," Byers said meaningfully. "That's not the worst of it, though. This morning we saw the Wisconsin Blue Thing."

"What blue thing?"

" _The_ Blue Thing of Wisconsin. The old Ice Age hiking trail sightings. I know we have a file on it somewhere."

"On what? A blue thing?"

Byers explained further.

Frohike sighed heavily. "Byers, if this was anyone but you tellin' me this…"

"I know. I took pictures. And of the Frogs."

"How good are they?"

"We have to get a digital camera that's ready faster, Fro."

Frohike laughed. "That good, huh?"

"Unfortunately. How's the paper look?"

"Great. One of our best yet. I wanted to ask what you thought about a recurring feature on corporate front groups."

Byers nodded into the phone. "Good idea. I don't know why we haven't thought of it before. A sidebar, maybe. Front Watch or something."

"It needs a better name. Ask Langly. He'll come up with something zippy."

"We can talk it over later."

"Okay. I'm updating the web site right now with last month's issue. Should be done in a couple hours if you want to take a look. You guys going any further tonight?"

"Probably. Ringo's anxious to get out of Wisconsin."

Frohike laughed. "Check into a hotel and cheer him up."

Byers blushed. "I'm plying him with Snickers."

"What, not Twinkies?"

"Mel, I may never forgive you for explaining that to Jimmy."

Frohike kept laughing. "Frink."

"How's Mulder?"

Frohike snickered. "Crazy as a bedbug."

"Well, that's nothing new. Was he happy to see J. Wayne last night?"

"I invited him. He said no."

"He said no?"

"He said he was busy. This kid blushes almost as much as you do, Byers. But I think he's a better liar."

"Everyone's a better liar than I am, Frohike."

"Not Langly."

Byers laughed. "I better get back to the table or he's going to order me some sort of thing with tentacles."

"What, no steaks? Keep in touch, Byers. Let me know if you guys spot Elvis or something."

Byers sighed. "Have a good evening."

**

Langly wanted to keep going, so Byers took shotgun again. Jimmy sat in the back and tried to sing along with Langly's choice of radio stations. Eventually Byers gave in and dug out the earplugs again, which may have been a mistake, in that he fell asleep before too long, half-curled against the door.

At some point he became aware of being shaken roughly by the shoulder. He tried to burrow back into sleep, assuming this was the prelude to another of Langly's four AM conversations about his latest D&D campaign. But then a hand landed on his crotch, and this never failed to wake him. He shook like a wet dog and the hand was removed. He opened his eyes to protest, and immediately wished he hadn't.

Jimmy was staring at him in the dark with wide eyes, and just past him Langly's profile. Byers knew Langly had long fancied a three-way, but couldn't imagine what kind of drugs it would take for him include Jimmy Bond as part of it. 

Jimmy was saying something, but it sounded like he was underwater. And then it came back to him. He pulled out the earplugs and turned to gaze at Langly, face completely neutral. "I'm assuming that was you, Ringo," he said calmly.

Jimmy started to giggle helplessly, and even Langly let out a snort of laughter before he shrugged it off. "I think we've got trouble."

Byers blinked and tried to focus. It was nearly two AM. "What is it?"

"For the last three hours, there's been a truck following us."

Byers sighed. "This is the interstate, Langly. It's possible he's just going west."

Langly shook his head. "I've got a bad feeling, John."

Byers sighed again and dug out a map. "Where are we?"

"Minnesota. We just passed the exit for someplace called Oakbury."

After a moment he said, "Okay. There's a rest stop in twenty miles or so. Pull in there, and we'll see if he follows. I could use some coffee anyway."

Langly gave him the You're-Not-Taking-Me-Seriously look, but nodded. "What if he does? Follow us, I mean."

"Then we keep going to the next town and lose him there. It's a big truck. It should be pretty easy."

"Okay," Langly agreed, still looking worried.

Byers gazed into the rearview mirror. "Put your seatbelt back on, Jimmy." It was indeed a big truck, an eighteen-wheeled hauler. But it could have been carrying anything, and a great deal of commercial trucking went on at night, so merchandise could be on shelves in the mornings, and because spot checks were less frequent.

On the other hand, it did seem to be following them closely, which was odd, considering how little other traffic there was. And, actually, that seemed a little odd, too. Byers checked to make sure Jimmy was buckled in and the doors were locked, and said, "Slow down a little, Langly. Let's see if he'll pass us."

He didn't, and he didn't try to force a confrontation. He just slowed down to match their speed.

Only when the radio started again did Byers notice it had been turned off. "That's a little loud, Langly," he observed mildly.

"I didn't turn it on!" Langly said, in pre-panic stage.

Byers turned around and stabbed at the power button. It didn't help, and he kept trying. Loud metal pounded through the van.

"Big truck  
Big truck  
Big truck  
Ain't no grave gonna hold my body down  
Ain't no grave gonna hold my body  
Hold my body  
Big truck  
Big truck--"

Langly had moved past pre-panic. "Oh shit, oh fuck, oh shit," he muttered.

"That's kinda creepy," Jimmy said once the music finally stopped.

Byers shook his head to clear it, and turned back to the mirror. He couldn't quite make out the driver, and while he was trying, the headlights went to high beam. "Okay, Ringo. Speed up. Let's get to that rest stop soon, though it does look like he's following us."

Langly nodded, still shaky. "And he knows we know, now."

"He doesn't seem to be interested in doing anything about it, though. Why'd you notice him?"

Langly went from blanch to blush fast enough Byers started to worry about him passing out, and he put his hand on Langly's leg. It was cold under his jeans, despite the warm night. "Calm down, all right?" he said quietly.

Jimmy said, "I noticed him. He was just following us. I was trying to see his license plate, you know, for the list of states, and he kept following us."

"Did you get his number?" Byers asked.

"Uh, no. But he's from New Mexico."

"Hmm."

The truck pulled in behind them at the rest area, diverting to the commercial lot. Byers caught part of the plate, EVS-something. From New Mexico. Byers shrugged at Langly. "Keep going."

As they went by it, Langly looked at the side panels and let out a humorless laugh. "Wal-Mart. That figures."

"Maybe he wasn't following us after all," Byers said, as they pulled out and it stayed parked. But seconds later, a different Wal-Mart truck detached itself from the lot and slid onto the interstate behind them.

"That's a little weird," Langly commented, starting to look anxious again.

"We've been seeing Wal-Mart trucks all over since we started, remember. It doesn't have to mean anything." Byers pulled out the map again. "The next town of any size is, let's see… Hudson. We should be able to lose him there."

"Guys?" Jimmy asked hesitantly, several minutes later. "This is even weirder."

"What?"

"It's the same license plate."

Byers turned to stare at him. "What?"

"It's a different truck, Jimmy," Langly said, sounding less confident than he'd have liked.

"Look, I saw the number, okay? EVS-028. It's the same truck."

"Johnny," Langly appealed to him.

"It _was_ EVS, but I didn't see the numbers."

"It's the same truck," Jimmy said firmly.

They were silent as the truck followed them onto the off ramp for Hudson. Byers, watching the truck carefully, gave Langly instructions, trying to lose the truck without getting lost themselves.

"Holy shit," Langly swore suddenly.

"What?" Byers jumped.

"Look at that, John."

Byers smiled thinly. "That may be our explanation." They stared at the Wal-Mart store in front of them. "Keep going, past it."

"Whatever you say, but we're gonna need gas pretty soon."

"Hey, he's pulling off," Jimmy said. "Into the Wal-Mart lot."

As it passed them, John made a faint noise, staring out the window.

Langly kept driving. Finally he said, "Maybe it was just a coincidence."

Jimmy grinned, a little unsettled still. "Maybe we got nervous about nothing."

Byers was still staring out the window. "That's the weirdest thing," he said, slightly dazed.

"What is?"

He didn't answer, and Langly tried again. "What's weird? Johnny?"

Byers turned to blink at him, pale in the streetlights.

"Johnny? You okay, babe? You look like you saw a ghost."

Byers nodded slowly. "I swear that driver looked exactly like Jimmy Hoffa. Just like he looked when he disappeared."

Langly shook his head and headed for a gas station. "We'll get you some coffee. Maybe some Ho-Hos. I think _your_ blood sugar's low."

"It coulda been worse," Jimmy offered. "It coulda been Bigfoot."

Byers sighed. "Bigfoot is a hoax. Let's call it a night and find a hotel."

"--Big truck  
Big truck  
Big truck--"

Langly slammed his palm against the radio. "And get this fucking thing exorcised. And I think I'll call Frohike and get him to burn all my Coal Chamber CDs."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Up: Caffeine, Conspiracies, and the Fortean Nature of Fishes VI: Land of Ten Thousand Lake Monsters: In which more old friends turn up, along with assorted unnatural oddities. Bad jokes and gratuitous sex also appear, mostly at the same time.


	6. Land of Ten Thousand Lake Monsters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here Be Monsters

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I continue to exploit and offend without permission. My apologies to the State of Minnesota for using their motto to pretend that they have lake monsters, which somehow, weirdly, it appears they don't. Twelve thousand lakes, thereabouts, and not a single suspicious-looking log. What's up with that? Minnesota deserves our deep adoration if only because of their unofficial motto, which is: "Come Fall in Love with a Loon". That more than makes up for the fact that I had to invent lake monsters. The summary, of course, is from XF "Quagmire", but I have reason to believe it wasn't original with them either. The lakes are real, the cymbospondylus used to be real, the hat is really from "Quagmire", lures mentioned are real, and I didn't make up the bassers, either. They really talk like this. If you're ever in Jacksonville, GA, go ahead and stop by the State Historical Marker for George Perry's record largemouth bass. He ate the fish, but you can still see replicas made by actual taxidermists. 
> 
> Bets and Darcy Patterson are mine, from the "Weekend" series. Wow, it's like old home week. The Patterson girls, who are not sisters, work for _Fortean Times Magazine_. (No, not really.) Their intern is mine, too. He basically exists to hold things and to keep the hard-drinking Patterson girls from driving while impaired. And because every lesbian couple needs a little guy to order around, right? AUCWA's mine, as is CARP. (As far as I know, anyway.)
> 
> Spoilers: If you still haven't seen the Discovery Channel special _Chasing Giants_ , regarding the O'Shea Expedition in search of live giant squid, I may have spoiled that for you. Go watch it now, and come back when you're done. It's okay: I'll wait. There's also an XF "Quagmire" joke or two, and a "The Lying Game" joke, plus approximately half-a-joke from XF "Three of a Kind", but if you haven't seen those episodes, you won't recognize them, so don't worry about it.

Byers found himself with some very concrete goals Tuesday. Specifically, he wanted to get some decent driving in, and he wanted to be the hell off the road before dark. The Blue Thing had been odd, but last night… 

He wasn't quite ready to ask Langly for tips on effective panicking, but he hadn't actually slept much, either, when they'd found a hotel. It had taken close to an hour for Langly to calm him down, although Byers' own version of "unsettled" was never going to win any awards for amateur dramatics. He'd spent the better part of the hours until dawn sitting bolt upright in bed, trying to see out the curtains Langly had pulled tightly closed, and rebuffing his lover's offers to "relax you a little, baby". Langly fortunately didn't take it too personally, and had in fact at some point fallen asleep with his face buried in Byers' lap.

Byers' addled brain chose to interpret this as "comforting" rather than "arousing", which was possibly the weirdest development yet. Eventually, Byers fell asleep too, despite the fact that Langly was drooling into his boxers. He woke around ten to the surprisingly appealing smell of fast food.

"Hey, Johnny." Langly lobbed something at him.

Too tired to catch it, he settled for ducking.

Langly laughed and threw himself down next to Byers. "We brought you breakfast, okay? We got two hours to checkout."

Byers mumbled his thanks as he accepted coffee and dug through the bag for a sausage biscuit. Langly leaned against him. "What, no complaints about the junk food?" he teased.

"Too hungry to care."

Langly laughed.

A biscuit and two hash browns later, Byers was watching him speculatively as he finished his coffee.

"What?"

Byers smiled enigmatically. "I was just… wondering…"

Langly waited.

"Oh, never mind," Byers said.

Langly sighed. "What, John?"

Byers blushed a little. "No, it's okay. It doesn't matter."

"What doesn't matter?"

"Well, I was going to ask… But never mind."

"Johnny, spit it out, okay?"

Byers spent close to a minute looking him over carefully, not saying a word. He looked up and met Langly's eyes finally, and Langly found himself adjusting the ragged jeans, feeling very warm indeed.

"No, it's okay," Byers said. "We should get going."

Langly tried not to whimper. He grabbed Byers' wrist and applied firm pressure. "John… what _is_ it?"

Byers looked away and ran his tongue along his lips. "I was hoping you'd… do… something. For me, I mean."

"Jesus. Anything, Johnny. _Anything_. I can't believe you even have to ask."

"In that case…" Byers leaned in to whisper harshly in his ear. "I would… _love_ … some more coffee."

Langly deflated. In at least a couple of ways. "I can't believe I let you do this to me."

Byers laughed. "Neither can I, actually."

Langly stood up with a martyred sigh. "They've probably got coffee in the lobby. If they don't, you're out of luck. I'm _not_ goin' back to the McDonald's for you, after what you just pulled."

"You're nuts about me, admit it."

Langly just sighed again before closing the door behind him.

Byers glanced at the clock and decided he'd better take a shower before it got too much later. Never mind that what he really wanted to do was to try to get some more sleep. But he could do that on the road, and, his treacherous mind suggested, if anything weird happened, at least he wouldn't have to know about it.

**

It wasn't to be, though. It seemed like he'd barely gotten his eyes closed when the van shuddered off onto a graveled shoulder and came to an abrupt halt. He heard Langly say—something, but decided to ignore it. That wasn't to be, either. The front doors opened and closed, and then the side door opened, and light streamed onto his face. 

Langly shook him roughly by the shoulder. "Wake up, John. Something's going on."

Byers surrendered and opened his eyes. "What."

Jimmy leaned in. "It's like a big tailgate out here."

Byers sighed and unbuckled the seat belt as Langly dug for the camera again. He stepped out of the van, expecting—Elvis, maybe—, and what he saw wasn't, initially, too bad. But it didn't bode well. He was staring at a van with the words "Anomalous Underwater Cryptid Watch Association" emblazoned across the side. He could live with that. But if AUCWA was here, things were bound to get worse.

He stepped around it, and he found himself gazing at a collection of some of the weirdest looking people he'd ever seen. Despite the fact that he'd seen many of them before. They all had cameras of one sort or another, and they were all looking at… a lake.

Byers sighed. "Somebody spotted a lake monster."

Langly shrugged. "It's Minnesota."

"Good point. I guess we might as well go see what's up."

They trailed through a variety of vehicles, some with their organizations displayed but most not, and eventually ran into someone they knew. Darcy Patterson grinned at them. "Well, hello, boys!" The curvy redhead handed her camera to her assistant before flinging her arms around Byers and smooching him on the cheek.

Langly did his best not to giggle, but Jimmy suffered no such inhibitions.

They heard a whoop, and that was all the warning they got before Bets Patterson came tearing across and threw herself at Jimmy and Langly, knocking them into each other and onto the ground in a tangle of long arms and legs.

She finally pulled herself off them, laughing, and got to her feet, offering a hand to Langly. "Haven't seen you boys since Atlanta!" 

Jimmy grinned. "This is so cool. We saw Drose and Marvel yesterday, and now you guys!"

Darcy sniffed. "Who're you callin' a guy?"

Byers detached himself from her with as much dignity as he could muster, conscious of the dozens of cameras in the vicinity. "Good to see you again, Darcy, Bets. You're looking well. Lake monster?" he asked.

Bets laughed. "Of course. All over this damned state. Nearly fifty sightings at last count, in about half that many lakes, all in the past week."

Darcy smiled and accepted the notebook from the assistant. "We've been to nearly a third of the lakes in three days. Some decent interviews, a couple of interesting theories, and a grand total of no verifiable pictures."

Langly laughed. "You've been at this too long. Since when does Fort care about verifiable?"

Bets stuck her tongue out at him. "Since the O'Shea expedition found those larval architeuthis. Lake crypts are getting their asses kicked by the giant squid. You know those bastards are even organizing letter campaigns to get us to take the damned thing out of the crypt listings? 'As it is demonstrably real, it hardly can be featured as a cryptozoological entity alongside such obvious pseudoscientific legends as Bigfoot…'"

Byers smiled. "Bigfoot _is_ a hoax. You know that."

"Prove it," Bets said belligerently.

Byers chuckled. "Prove a negative? Sure. After that I'll count to infinity. Anything out here?" He looked around. "Where is here, anyway?"

"You're so funny, John." Bets sighed and collapsed onto the hood of a rental car. " _Here_ is Mud Lake," she said. "Our _third_ Mud Lake in as many days. Wanna guess what the most popular lake name in Minnesota is?"

Langly laughed. "So is there anything here?"

Bets shrugged. "Some suspicious logs, a couple of turtles, a swan, and a bunch of guys with John Deere caps and rubber worms standing around saying 'hey, yer scarin' the lunkers'." She looked around. "Where's Mel?"

"Back home."

She winked at Jimmy. "So this is a vacation? Are you chaperon or pinch-hitter?"

Langly snorted. "Neither."

"Are you guys in a hurry?" Darcy asked. "We were about to go find lunch. Lens Cap U just showed up, so we might as well drag our asses out of here. No one's going to see anything now, even if there was anything to see."

Langly snickered. "Somebody oughtta sabotage their truck."

Bets grinned wickedly. "Why do you think they're getting here so late? C'mon, let's grab some beers and catch up. Follow us, okay? There's a place a couple-three miles down the road."

Byers glanced at his watch and shrugged. "Why not. I need a lot more coffee before too much longer."

**

"What's Lens Cap U?" Jimmy asked as they pulled back onto the road.

Byers smiled. "'Crypto-Aquatic Research Project'. They've been doing this for four decades and still haven't gotten a single decent image of a creature. The lens cap was still on, or the film got exposed, or the batteries were dead, or someone put a thumb over the lens… They keep trying."

Langly snickered. "And every fucking lake monster in the world rolls over and tries to look like a sunken log when they show up."

Jimmy blinked. "You don't believe in lake monsters, do you, Langly?"

"Hell no. But don't tell the chicks that. Bets has had her heart set on finding a, what is it, John?"

"Cymbospondylus."

"Right, a cymbospondylus, for as long as we've known her."

"It's a Triassic marine reptile whose fossils have been found in Nevada. A thirty-foot prehistoric lizard with a tail as long as its body."

"A dinosaur?"

"No. A marine reptile. A fish lizard. They weren't fish, either, but they weren't dinosaurs. They were aquatic reptiles that lived at the same time as the dinosaurs. Like plesiosaurs and ichthyosaurs."

"Right. I've heard of those. But in Nevada?"

"Nevada used to be part of a massive inland sea. Bets has a theory the cymbospondylus adapted to fresh or brackish water, and got quite a lot smaller." Byers shrugged. "I think it's nonsense, but she's spent years chasing the things. And stranger things have happened."

"Like last night," Langly snickered. "And yesterday morning. And the day before."

"Please," Byers said. "I'd rather not think about it."

"Hey, Jimmy," Langly said. "Don't tell the chicks about Washington either, okay? I know you don't get it, but we're reporters, right? And so are they. We don't need 'em scooping us."

Byers half-smiled. "I imagine they're heading that way, too. We'll probably end up with an alternative press convention out there."

Langly grumbled. "So what the fuck are _we_ going out for?"

"We've got Rickson and Payter."

Langly sighed, but shut up.

**

They settled in behind sandwiches and drinks at a local tavern. The guys had coffee, the gals went for scotch.

Bets couldn't resist the urge to tease. "Come on, boys. Put some hair on your chests."

Langly snickered.

"It's a little early," Jimmy said, dubiously.

Bets snorted indelicately. "It's Minnesota, and we've spent three fuckin' days taking pictures of turtles. If that's not a good enough reason to drink, I'll never know what is."

Byers smiled. "We're driving. Who's your new assistant?"

Darcy poured the kid another cup of coffee. "Richie Von Sant. Richie, these are the Lone Gunmen. Three out of four, anyway. Why'd you leave your better half at home, boys? If this isn't a vacation."

Langly snickered some more. "He was busy."

Bets let out a peal of laughter that earned her glances from half the guys at the bar. Her blonde ponytail earned her a few second glances. Darcy smiled and put a proprietary arm around her.

"Mulder lose the handcuff keys again?" Bets asked, leering. 

Byers managed not to blush too much. "Not that I'm aware of. How long have you been with these two, Richie?"

Darcy grinned. "Three months. We're awful proud of him."

Bets laughed again. "Yeah, he's got the record. By, let's see, two months and three weeks."

Darcy grinned wider. "He even passed the test. Tell them what he said when you hit on him, Bets."

"He said, 'Well, you're the bosses'."

"Yeah, she wasn't serious, though," Von Sant observed in disappointment. "I figured I'd have a hell of a harassment case."

Langly laughed himself into tears. Bets pounded him on the back. "We're keepin' this one," she informed them mischievously. "Sometimes you just need a Dick around."

Von Sant smiled. "Pleasure to be of service, ladies."

Byers did blush, and excused himself politely. "I'll be right back. I need to make a call."

Bets watched him go, smirking. "I'll bet. What's the matter, Langly, you haven't convinced him yet?"

Langly managed to stop laughing. "Oh, sure, he's convinced. He's just a little more restrained than you chicks."

"Just don't lose the handcuff key," Darcy advised solemnly. "Locksmiths can be so damned patronizing."

Langly grinned back at them. "Yeah, but at least we don't have to cut a sleeve out of a shirt before we call him."

Bets giggled. "Strapless."

The laughter was interrupted by Byers, returning with another round of drinks. "Mel says hi," he told the gals.

Darcy sulked. "And you didn't let us talk to him?"

Langly grinned. "Hey, you have his number, you can pay for your own obscene calls."

Bets laughed. "Last time, I called collect. He accepted."

Byers made a face. "He would."

Bets slapped him on the back. "Don't be jealous, John. I'll call for you next time, okay?"

Langly laughed. "You'd have better luck with Jimmy."

Bets leered. "Now _that_ sounds like a good time."

Langly snickered into his coffee. "Yesterday he had Drose after him. Today, it's you two." He looked Jimmy over. "I just don't see the appeal."

Darcy nudged Langly. "You like 'em smart. We like 'em tall."

Langly grinned at Byers. "He's tall."

Bets winked. "True."

Darcy laughed. "And so here we are, in the middle of Minnesota, having lunch with four gorgeous dolls. You never did say what you were doing out here."

"Passing through," Byers offered.

"Story," Langly said shortly.

Bets pouted. "C'mon, boys, you can do better than that. Give us something, so we can expense this."

Byers smiled and handed over a CD-ROM. "Here. See what you can make of this."

Darcy stared at the neat writing on it. "Seriously?" she asked.

Bets leaned over to have a look. "Fuck me!" she exclaimed. "Photos?"

"They're not that good," Byers apologized. "But I typed up an account and put it on there too."

"Richie, go get the laptop," Bets ordered. "I wanna see this."

Richie sighed, but headed out for the rental.

"The Blue Thing," Darcy said. "That's pretty far out."

Langly snickered. "Who says 'far out' anymore?"

"I can say a lot of other things, too," she informed him loftily. "Want to hear some of them?"

Langly grinned. "No, that's okay. You start in with that, and Byers'll have to go call somebody again, and he'll never finish his lunch."

Byers stood up. "You go ahead. I'm going to get some more coffee. Can I bring anyone else anything?" 

Darcy regarded him carefully. "You do look tired, John. Langly keep you awake all night?"

Langly snorted. "I wish."

Bets snickered. " _Jimmy_ keep you awake all night?"

Byers sighed as they all broke into laughter. "I'll be right back."

**

There was only so much coffee could do, though, and Byers was in need of a miracle, or another five hours of sleep. At some point in the afternoon, he found himself gazing blankly out the window as pastures, woods, and lakes slid by. 

"Jimmy?"

Jimmy stopped arguing with Langly about the radio station long enough to answer. "Yeah?"

"I guess you'd better pull over." Even to himself his voice sounded leaden.

Langly turned to look at him. "You okay? You're not gonna throw up or anything? It's this music, isn't it. 'True Colors', for Chrissakes. Sucks."  
He shook his head and pointed as Jimmy pulled off the road. Langly looked over, and then stared, jaw dropping.

Byers sighed. "I guess it's not a log."

Langly shook his head. "Uh, no." He reached for the camera.

"Make sure you take the lens cap off," Byers said dully.

Ten minutes later, with the surface of Bass Lake broken only by a muddy ripple, Langly inspected the display.

"Okay," Byers said, "tell me the bad news."

Langly shrugged. "You remember those pictures of Champy the librarian took?"

Jimmy was still staring out at the lake. "That was way cool."

Langly glanced at Byers. "You wanna wait and see if it comes up again, closer to shore?"

Byers rubbed his hand across his face. "I want a drink." 

"Me too."

**

When they spotted another curious lump at Leech Lake, they didn't even bother to wake Byers up. They just kept driving.

"It's a rock," Langly told Jimmy.

"Rocks don't have heads." 

"I didn't see a head."

"You had your eyes closed."

"I didn't see a head."

"Maybe it was a giant leech."

Langly shuddered. "Gross."

**

They didn't have much choice at Rice Lake though. The road was strewn with pickups, SUVs, and news vans, and they literally weren't able to get past. Langly sighed and pulled over. He and Jimmy glared at each other for a few moments, but when Byers started to stir, Langly surrendered with bad grace.

"Gimme the fuckin' camera."

Byers pulled out his earplugs. "What's up?" he asked groggily.

Langly silently recited five of the seven dirty words and then pasted a Zirconite-quality smile across his face. "Just going to see if I can't take a couple shots of my thumb," he said brightly.

Byers sighed and followed them.

A cluster of people stood around a man wearing a hat with the legend "Show Us Your Bobbers", who was being photographed with an extremely large, extremely ugly fish.

"What's going on?" Jimmy asked the nearest man.

"Hawg," the man offered. "Twenty-one two." 

Jimmy blinked. "Huh?"

The man frowned. "Bass, son. Big ol' bass."

"Oh." Jimmy nodded, not much enlightened. 

The man turned on him with the zeal of an evangelist. "Biggest largemouth ever was George Perry's twenty-two four. Perry used a Chubb Wiggle Fish. Pat Ray here's using Yozuri Lures. Tandem squid rig. He's out here every damned day, never caught anything bigger than twelve pounds. Before today."

Jimmy nodded out of general amiability. "So this one is how big again?"

"Twenty-one two. It's a good catch, for here anyway. Castro's got bass in Cuba that'd make Perry's look like a minnow. We ought to just bomb that Commie bastard. But this guy," he jerked a finger at the happy fisherman, "he's set for life. Not like that clown in California. Catch and release my ass."

Langly sighed. "So it's just a fish?"

The man stopped viewing Jimmy as a potential member of the Pro-Bass fraternity and glared. "You ought to keep your girlfriend the hell away from bass lakes till she learns some manners."

Byers grabbed Langly and put a hand over his mouth. "We'll just be going now. Come on, Jimmy."

As they made their way back to the bus, phrases leapt out from the excited crowd. "Jig-hopping", "stroking", "double-spoons". 

"Now _this_ is an alien species," Byers observed. "I'm just glad I don't know what they're talking about."

**

"Good timing. We're headed to the airport in less than half an hour. Anything new happening?"

Byers sighed. "I don't want to talk about it."

"Elvis?"

"No. Much worse."

"Bigfoot?"

"I wish people would stop saying that. Bigfoot is a hoax. Everybody knows that."

"Are you gettin' enough sleep, Byers? You seem pretty grumpy."

"No, I'm not. And I don't want to talk about it."

"Are you guys okay?"

"We're fine. It's just weird, and I don't want to talk about it."

"You're acting squirrelly again. Did the kid decide he wanted a sex change?"

"Not funny, Mel."

"Sorry. Look, you've got me worried, Byers."

"Lake monsters," Byers spit out abruptly.

"Lake what? What kind of lake monsters?"

"The kind that have actual heads and aren't sturgeons or turtles."

Frohike pondered it. "Mulder said there was a Colossal Claude sighting in Puget Sound…"

"We _saw_ the damned thing, Fro."

"Colossal Claude?"

"No. Some damned lake monster in the middle of Minnesota. Bass Lake."

"You're sure it wasn't a bass?"

Byers nearly growled. "Yes, very. We got mired in a bass contest a couple of hours later. I know what a fish looks like, okay? They don't have long necks."

"Gar do…"

"We have pictures. They're fuzzy and distant, but it's not a fish. There have been monster sightings all over this state this week, according to the Pattersons, who we also ran into today. I gave them the Blue Thing pictures. They said hi," he added irritably

"Jesus, Byers. Maybe you _should_ dip into the Valium. You've never come unglued over a lake monster before. You're acting like it ate your dog."

"Also not funny," Byers snapped.

"Look, buddy, why don't you check into a nice motel and get yourself laid, okay?"

"Fuck you too." Byers disconnected, leaving Frohike staring at the phone and wondering what the hell had gotten into the boy.

**

Dinner was pizza, ham and pineapple. Not Byers' favorite, but Langly wanted no part of hamburgers or fish, and seemed ready to freak out over the pepperoni. Nobody was in the best of moods by the time they found a hotel, which they did while the sun was still up. Byers wasn't taking any more chances. At this rate, Elvis was just around the corner, but at least he wasn't manning the desk at the Motel Six in Fargo. Not the Tuesday evening shift, at any rate.

Frankly, as long as he wasn't working the Wednesday morning shift, either, Byers couldn't have cared less.

Jimmy had volunteered to take a look at the van, and Langly was raiding a nearby convenience store for Hostess and Sweetarts, so Byers decided to see if a bath would help alleviate his admittedly foul mood. He climbed into the hot water and sighed. Frohike was right, of course. It was hardly his first lake monster, and they'd never really bothered him much before. He was still musing on it when he heard the door open and close, heralding the triumphant return of Langly with Snickers and Ding Dongs. 

Langly wandered into the bathroom and gave John a lecherous once-over before launching into his complaints against the state of North Dakota. "The guy at the store had never even _heard_ of Jolt, John. Why the fuck do I keep letting you drag me out of civilization on these fucking stories?"

"Fargo is hardly the untamed jungle, Ringo," he replied mildly.

Langly glared. "Prove it."

"They did offer to put cashews on the pizza."

"That just means they're _crazy_ yokels."

"That's one of the things I love about you. Your unconditional acceptance of all people."

Langly snorted. "Yeah, well, they just better get Comedy Central," he said, stalking back to the bedroom.

Byers sank deeper into the hot water.

Eventually, the water started to cool, and he reached for one of the tiny towels, feeling quite a bit better.

Langly, watching _The Daily Show_ from the night before, leered at him as he tried to keep the towel somewhere in the vicinity of his waist.

"Took you long enough. I thought you'd been eaten by a lake monster."

"In the bathtub?"

"It _is_ a Motel Six."

"It's clean. That's all that matters." Byers sighed, abandoned the towel, and his modesty, and flopped onto the bed beside his terminally aggravating lover. "You could've joined me."

Langly rolled over and grinned at him. "Wanna see _my_ lake monster, do ya?" 

Byers covered his face with his hands. "God, that's sad."

Langly laughed and leaned in to nuzzle at John's damp hair. "I call him 'Super'. Wanna know why?"

"I hope it has to do with the Great Lakes."

"I guess that works too."

"I think it's a chemical imbalance."

Langly snickered. "Hormonal."

"No…" John shook his head. "I mean me. I'm lying here naked on a hotel bedspread I _know_ can't have been washed anytime recently, listening to you make terrible puns about lake monsters, after an extremely frustrating day, headed for a story that could break open everything I want to know, and all I really want at this second is to fuck you senseless, lake monster jokes or not. You can't tell me that's normal."

Langly chortled in his ear. "Fuck normal. Normal is boring. If I wanted normal I'd be sleeping with—" Langly paused to consider it. "Actually, do we even _know_ anybody normal?"

Byers thought about it, as much as he could, anyway. It was difficult to concentrate with Langly playing with the hair at his nape and breathing into his ear. "Does Scully count?"

Langly snorted. "Not anymore, and it's just as well. She'd kick my ass."

Byers chuckled. "I don't know, Cutie. You might have a shot."

"Johnny!" 

Byers laughed at his outraged yelp. "Look at it this way. Mel'd kill for her to call him that."

Langly continued to sulk. "I'm not Mel."

John slid his t-shirt up and ran his fingertips along the younger man's spine. "I know." He watched him shiver and moved back to follow fingers up with tongue. "I know exactly who you are," he mumbled as Langly moaned softly. "You're my annoying… insane…" he emphasized each word with a tiny nip, "…impulsive… immature… arrogant…" Langly gave some thought to protesting, but then one of John's hands slipped under his stomach and into his jeans, and he decided to worry about it later, "…brilliant… _hormonal_ … totally hedonistic…" John's mouth had reached the back of his neck and he arched into it, "…melodramatic… co-worker," John finished.

"What?" Langly tried to roll over to face him, blinking, "What?"

John laughed, the low chuckle that sent ripples through Langly's body even when he was across the room from him. "Just seeing if you were paying attention."

Langly sighed. "I was, but not really to what you were saying." He thought about it for a moment. "Immature? Really?"

Byers kept at it. "You spent twenty minutes today arguing with Jimmy about what kind of crust you wanted on the pizza."

"He started it."

" _Totally_ immature."

"I like to think of it as youthful energy."

Byers wasn't just nuzzling his shoulder, he was undoing his fly, one button at a time. "I can go along with that. You have any plans for that youthful energy of yours?"

Langly squirmed against the clever hand. "Anything goes in a Motel Six."

"True. Roll over."

Langly was slow to comply, and Byers grabbed his hardening dick and gave a squeeze. Langly yelped, and did his best. Byers let go and pushed the front of his t-shirt up to his neck, too, trailing feather light kisses along his sternum. Langly closed his eyes and twisted his hands into John's thick hair, concentrating on the hot breaths against him. "Oh, God," he mumbled. "Oh…"

But that other hand was still at his fly, working his jeans down, taking every opportunity of skin against skin. Langly stretched his head back, hips lifting off the bed, trying to get closer. When the hand left his neck, he nearly whimpered, only to find it again, sliding his jeans down his ass. He raised his hips higher, all the help he could give with that mouth sucking gently at his jaw.

"Please…"

John muttered—something—into the sensitive spot just under his jawbone. Langly was having a hard time paying attention to anything but the feel of John's beard against him. All too soon it disappeared, John's lips sliding down his chest and down, down, following the dusting of fine hairs that led to his navel. 

"Johnny—" was as far as he got before Byers took him in his mouth. "Oh, God—" 

Langly groaned softly as Byers slid a hand over his hip and traced the jut of his pelvis. Byers laughed a little, and the tremors spread through Langly's body. John stroked his balls with light touches, and swallowed him to the root. Langly froze, whimpering, and came, thrusting against John for all he was worth. John pulled away and rested his head in Langly's lap, watching the younger man gasp for breath. Langly panted, running his hands restlessly through John's hair. 

"Oh, God. You—Oh. Oh, God," Langly managed. 

Byers laughed, and Langly grabbed his head in both hands and pulled him up for a desperate kiss. He threw himself limply back against the pillows, pulling Byers with him. John shifted to lay his head on Langly's heaving chest, chuckling softly.

Langly stroked his beard with compulsive gestures, his breath slowing to a sigh. "Jesus, you're good, Johnny."

Byers smiled wickedly. "You don't know the half of it, Ri."

Langly laughed raggedly. "There's more?"

"You better believe it. After all…"

"Anything goes in a Motel Six."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up: Caffeine, Conspiracies, and the Fortean Nature of Fishes VII: Do Abductees Dream of Alien Sheep? In which our wayward boys try to get through North Dakota without too much weirdness, and Frohike and J. Wayne spend a little time in The Other Washington, doin' the journalist thing, all while the author adjusts her medications.


	7. Do Abductees Dream of Alien Sheep?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They've got the best coffee and computers and smack.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The subtitle in this part is a Philip K Dick reference, the summary, more from Robyn Hitchcock, "Viva Sea-Tac!" (We may see quite a lot of this song before this is all over.) CSICOP and FUFOR are real, respectively they stand for Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (say that three times fast.) and Fund for UFO Research. (NARG and COUD-I are also real, and doing yeomanly work in the realm of UFOlogy, despite anything I said about their names.) WETHR Front is mine, as is Tim Ellis. What's really sad is, I didn't even make up the pancake thing. It's based on an encounter a man named Joe Simonton had in 1961. Joe had his analyzed by the US Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, which apparently had a lot of time on its hands back then. Ditsy Dottie, who doesn't exist except in a general sort of composite way, has not changed the recipe. The theory that aliens have some sort of fatal reaction to salt has since been put forward in an alarmingly serious manner. The world is so packed with nutbars that I invite you to ponder the statistical probability of there being room for anyone sane. If Diogenes had had a butterfly net, he'd _still_ be looking. Further parts still pend, so get your nutritional and culinary advice in early and avoid the rush.

Byers was definitely in a better mood the next morning. At least two hours of last night had verged on a religious experience, and he was feeling a lot more relaxed. As Langly pushed him against the wall of the shower and shoved deeply into him, he was willing to concede that the Frog was a prank, the Wal-Mart truck was a coincidence, the Blue Thing was just smoke, the lake monster was, well, a snake eating a turtle, maybe, or a conger eel. Something not worth worrying about, in any event. He braced himself against the cool tiles with a forearm and pushed back into Langly's thrusts.

"Oh, God…" Langly groaned. " _So_ good…"

Byers was in full agreement, but couldn't express any sentiment more complicated than soft moans. He was almost sorry when Langly's grasp on his cock tightened, knowing orgasm wasn't far off. He enjoyed the fleeting moments on the edge of that abyss almost as much as he enjoyed the freefall of climax itself. 

Then it was over, and he stood panting under the hot water, Langly half-supporting him. Langly grinned, way too perky for the hour. "Let's get some coffee. Today's gonna be a good day."

"Just as long as we don't spot any more lake monsters or dead people."

"Or Blue Things."

"Those either."

"I wonder if there's a Starbucks somewhere in this Godforsaken town."

"It'd be pretty newsworthy if there isn't."

**

Jimmy spent breakfast cheerfully speculating on who or what they might run into today. Byers did his best to not let it dent his mood. Langly's hand in his lap under the table seemed to help. If Jimmy (or for that matter the waiter) noticed Langly's peculiarly single-handed eating style, he gave no sign of it. Byers reflected again on how easily Langly could make him stupid. Then Langly gave him the lopsided grin he'd never grown tired of. He handed Jimmy some money and stood abruptly, knowing only the van lay between Langly and a PDA of world-class proportions. 

"I'm going to check the equipment. Meet you outside," he said, trying very hard to ignore Jimmy's knowing grin as Langly followed him out. Byers thought of Jimmy's knowing grin as a threshold for the knowing grins of the rest of the world. Jimmy was a nice guy, but, to be perfectly honest, he wasn't, well, he just wasn't that bright. So when Jimmy caught something, you could pretty much assume the rest of the world had already reeled it in, gutted and fried it. Jimmy's knowing grin represented the knowing grins of thousands of people with room temperature IQs or higher. It could be… embarrassing.

Langly was nanoseconds away from wearing John's suit, with him still in it, by the time they got to the van. 

"What is with you lately?" Byers demanded.

Langly shrugged. "I guess weirdness just makes me horny."

Byers covered his face. "I'm going to have to chase you off with a stick."

"It'd be easier if you'd just come on over to the Dark Side, baby."

Byers did, for a few minutes anyway, but when they heard Jimmy approaching, he reverted to the Forces of Good. "Grab the maps, will you? Let's see what we have today."

**

"Good reporter or bad reporter?"

"What?" J. Wayne asked.

"It's your story. You wanna be good reporter or bad reporter?"

J. Wayne glanced at his neat suit, and then at Frohike's customary leather look. "I'd probably better be the good reporter."

Frohike laughed. "You got it. Ring the bell, kid."

They waited a minute, and then tried again. After what seemed an interminable wait, a short, fat man with a gin blossom and a bad cold opened the door and shot J. Wayne a look. "I'm pretty happy with my own religion, okay?"

Frohike shoved rudely past him. "Hey, that's great, who cares. We're the press."

J. Wayne followed him inside. "I'm sorry, Mr. Payter? We had an appointment? I'm Wayne Arthur, and this is my associate. We spoke on the phone?"

Payter seemed to relax a little, and Frohike hid a grin. 

"Oh, yeah, I remember. Now, you said you weren't with _Powder Keg_ anymore?" He gestured vaguely at what apparently was the carcass of a lumbering tartan beast of some variety. Frohike flashed a look at J. Wayne, and remained standing. It helped with the menace, he'd found. J. Wayne, less than delighted, sat gingerly on the edge, not all that sure if it was going to collapse under him—or move, for that matter.

"No, sir, I'm not. At the moment, I'm working with the Lone Gunman Group." That sounded faintly ominous, despite J. Wayne's polite tone. Frohike's amusement grew. The kid was a natural.

"Oh." Payter seemed to want to ask a question about that, but kept it to himself. 

Frohike seemed to be making him nervous, which was, after all, the point. Even the most cooperative witness, when dealing with the fringe press, didn't quite take them seriously. The vague air of menace and secrecy made people less inclined to treat them like some goofy tabloid. Not to mention the fact that lying to the media seemed to be hardwired into the human psyche. It could be kind of depressing, really.

"Well," Payter said with an uneasy half-laugh. "What do you want to know?"

"For starters," J. Wayne began, "I'm curious about the metal you sent me. Where exactly did it come from?"

Payter shrugged, which Frohike figured meant a lie was coming. He cleared his throat, but didn't say anything. 

Payter focused on him for a split second, and then looked at J. Wayne again. He coughed a little, and sat down. "Maury. It was… just, sitting there, right? In a little pile. About a half-dozen pieces."

Frohike cleared his throat again and narrowed his eyes.

Payter stood up abruptly and went into the next room. J. Wayne glanced at Frohike, who gestured him to stay where he was. Payter returned with a wad of Kleenex. "Sorry. I got this summer cold."

J. Wayne smiled sympathetically. "I know how those are. What I'm mostly wondering is why the metal was still there. My understanding is that Maury was examined pretty thoroughly."

Payter gave a weasely smile. "I guess they missed it."

Frohike kept his sigh to himself and concentrated on projecting an air of disbelief. Not hard at all, under the circumstances.

J. Wayne let it go for the moment. "Did you take all the pieces?"

"Just a couple."

That seemed damned unlikely, in Frohike's considered opinion, and J. Wayne didn't look like he was buying it either. They waited. Eventually Payter felt compelled to fill the silence.

"I mean, I did, but I don't have them anymore. I mean, not with me."

The man was obviously lying. The most likely possibility was that he hoped to sell them the other pieces, but it could be something else.

J. Wayne frowned. "Can we go look at where you found them?"

Payter hesitated. "Sure, I guess. I mean, if I can remember. I'm not sure I can, though…"

Frohike pulled himself off the wall he was leaning against. "This is a load of crap. We're wasting our time here, and we've got other appointments to keep." At about this point, Langly would have said something like "What other appointments" and Byers would have given that nervous chuckle he did when he was trying to lie, and he would have said something lame like "You know, _the_ appointments". Then he would have stood up, blushing slightly, and said something like "Sorry to have—"

"Sorry to have taken up your time, Mr. Payter," J. Wayne said, standing up. "We'll be on our way now."

Frohike figured odds-on the guy would spill before they got to the door, but he didn't. He was still looking undecided and anxious, though, so they might have to try back in a couple days to see if he'd rethought. 

J. Wayne was humiliated and disappointed when they got back into the rental and pulled away. "God, I can't believe I dragged you all the way across the country for this! I swear he was helpful before, I don't know what's wrong with him. God, I'm sorry, Mel."

"Relax, kid. He'll spill. It's just going to take a couple of days. In the meantime, let's see if we can get out to Maury with a metal detector, okay?"

J. Wayne slumped in the passenger seat, looking miserable. "Sorry."

"Don't worry about it. He's not our only way into this thing, okay? You figure out how to get us to Maury, and I'll get in touch with our contacts here. The UFO groups in the area will be buzzing. I know some of the people, and they'll talk." He glanced across at the kid. "It's not a dead end, okay? Someone talked to him before we got there. Probably our Men in Black."

J. Wayne looked up. "How do you know that?"

"He had four coffee cups on the table. Three of them were full, and cold. I don't figure him for a regular entertainer."

He thought about it and nodded eventually. "You're right. I didn't notice that. Do you think he'll still talk to us, though? If they threatened him?"

"He's got your cell number."

"Yeah."

"He'll call by Saturday. If not, we'll go see him again Sunday. And you'll wear a gray suit, okay?"

J. Wayne glanced at his black jacket and pants and colored slightly. "Oh."

Frohike laughed. "Let's get back to the hotel."

**

J. Wayne managed to find a charter boat that would take them out to Maury the next morning, and a store that would rent them a decent metal detector. Frohike found himself amazed again at what money could do. It wasn't like they ever had much to play with themselves, so he hadn't had much opportunity to see it at work. Without J. Wayne, they'd have spent three hours searching electronics stores for cheap components so he could make one, or waiting for the boys to get here with the van and the one they already had. They'd also have had to take a ferry and spend a lot of time trying to get out to the actual site, assuming it was even accessible by roads, which from the maps didn't look too likely. They needed to be on the beach, and the best way to get there was a boat. 

Frohike had arranged to drop by the offices of one of his local contacts, and on the way he filled J. Wayne in.

"This is WETHR Front. They're probably the biggest state-based UFO group in this neck of the woods, certainly the biggest in Washington. I've worked with a lot of these guys. They don't publish news on their own, they're strictly a research-and-book group. So they come to us with stories, sometimes. We dig out the story together, we print it as news, and later they write the books. It's a pretty good system."

J. Wayne nodded. "Okay. What's the name mean?"

Frohike shrugged slightly. "Standard stupid acronym. Washington Extra-Terrestrial Humanoid Research Front."

J. Wayne smiled. "I've heard worse."

"CSICOP," Frohike grinned.

"I always kind of liked that one. FUFOR," J. Wayne offered.

"NARG."

"What's that one?"

"Nevada Aerial Research Group."

"NARG. Perfect."

"There are worse. COUD-I."

"Could I?"

"C-O-U-D-I. Collectors of Unusual Data-International. They publish _Anomalous Thoughts_."

" _Anomalous Thoughts_ ," J. Wayne tried it out. " _That's_ not a bad name, I guess. Not everyone can be _The Smoking Gun_."

Frohike grinned at him. "You'd be surprised how many organizations are."

J. Wayne laughed. "You never told me how you guys came up with _The Magic Bullet_."

"Another time, maybe. The guy we're going to meet here, Tim Ellis, is an old friend of mine. Mulder introduced us about a million years ago. Don't tell him about the trace though, okay? Don't mention Payter or Rickson, not until we get the lay of the land." He shrugged. "By the way, if Payter calls you, tell him to go to a pay phone, inside someplace like a store, and call you back. Don't let him say too much on his line."

The kid nodded. "You think he's being listened to?"

"No sense taking chances. Someone knew he was talking."

"Okay. Do you trust this Ellis guy?"

"As much as I trust any UFO type," Frohike grinned. "They're all a little wacko. Anyhow, if we strike out here, we've got some other places to try, and some of them do publish news, so let's just keep the trace and the names to ourselves, okay?"

"In other words, don't get scooped."

Frohike laughed. "Being scooped is bad, in any context."

**

Frohike was greeted in traditional hail-fellow-well-met style, which seemed to amuse J. Wayne. Ellis in particular was delighted to see them. He looked J. Wayne up and down appreciatively. "You trade in Jimmy for a compact version?"

Frohike snickered. "The new model. This one is even smarter than he looks."

J. Wayne blushed furiously, and looked around the office, trying not to make eye contact with anyone. "Uh, you look busy," he offered lamely.

Ellis shrugged. "There's a lot going on out here this month. Every nutcase in the county is reporting sightings. Even a couple of sane people are too," he grinned. "Who's your source, Mel?"

"Not yet, Timmy. Let's see what you've got first."

Ellis grinned wider. "Bigfoot."

"Bullshit."

"No, really."

"Bigfoot is a hoax, Tim. Even you know that."

Ellis sniffed with mock contempt. "Bigfoot may very well be an extra-terrestrial, for your information." Frohike snorted, and Ellis shrugged. "Whatever he is or isn't, we've got sightings. We've had about a half-dozen CEIII reports with hairy humanoids."

Frohike sighed. "So, what, Bigfoot's chauffeuring the Little Green Men now?"

Ellis motioned them into his office. "Ix-nay on the GM-Lay. You want to get me burned in effigy by the True Believers?"

Frohike laughed. "Like it'd be the first time. C'mon, you've got more than a Bigfoot."

"Several Bigfoot. Bigfeet? Bigfoots?" Ellis sat behind his desk and thought about it. "Okay. I'm gonna do you a _big_ favor. We really made out on that last book, so I guess we owe you."

"Damn straight."

Ellis picked up his phone and spoke into it. "Kip, call Ditsy Dottie and tell her I'm bringing some friends to see her, and get one of the kids to copy all the new crap from this month." He paused. "Yeah, okay. Thanks."

He hung up and Frohike raised an eyebrow. "Ditsy Dottie?"

"You'll love her. She's one of those who calls herself a 'selectee'."

Frohike sighed. "The Universe Is A Friendly Place?"

Ellis cracked a smile. "You got it. So, Maury. We've got sightings, we've got photos. No video footage yet, but it's only a matter of time. We have contacts, missing time, and abductions being reported, and we have Men in Black wandering around the place. Have a seat."

"We hear three Men in Black," Frohike commented.

"Yeah, okay. Sunglasses and hats. Bow ties and a black car."

"What kind of car?"

Ellis rolled his eyes. "Reports vary. We've got, let's see…" He pulled out a file and sifted through it. "Oldsmobile, Beemer, Caddy, oh, here's a good one, station wagon."

"Black?" Frohike asked with polite disbelief.

"Of course. I'm not sure I buy this one, though. The reporter is a guy—well, he's not exactly a model of sanity."

"Unlike Ditsy Dottie," Frohike said dryly.

Ellis laughed. "She's—what you'd call local color."

"You're sending out interviewers?"

"Yes, of course. I know what your next question is, Mel. How many are refusing to talk after they report."

"Bingo."

"A few, not many. We've had over a hundred twenty reports since mid-June—"

"A hundred twenty in less than a month? That sounds more like a wave than a flap, Tim."

Ellis grinned. "In Virginia, maybe. We have higher standards out here."

Frohike snorted. "If you're tryin' to impress the kid, don't bother. He doesn't know what the difference is. He's watchdog press, not ETH."

Ellis looked disappointed as J. Wayne blushed. He shrugged and explained. "Flap is a big to-do without much cause in the way of sightings. A wave is a big to-do with a high number of reporteds."

J. Wayne nodded. "Thanks."

"Anyway," Ellis continued, "we've had the usual set of statistics. Seventy percent of the callers fill out the forms we send them. Fifty percent of the callers agree to interviews. Nothing too different there. This time nine of those who agreed to interviews turned out to be unhelpful."

"Unhelpful?" J. Wayne asked.

"'Oh, it was a joke', 'I don't want to talk about it anymore', 'no one by that name here', etc. We usually get some of that. People get taunted by their family, friends, whatever, and decide not to go further with it. It happens. Out of a wave of a hundred, we'd probably get four of those. So, yeah, I'd say our friends with the sunglasses are having some effect, but not much. We've got…" he glanced through the file again, and stopped at a page in the back. "Okay. We've had a hundred twenty-two sightings this window. So far. We get more every day. Ninety-one filled out the questionnaires we sent them. We called them back to set up interviews, and sixty-five agreed. Two of those later cancelled by phone, the other five just refused to talk to our field investigators for various reasons. And nineteen of the interviews reported MIB visits."

A young man poked his head in the door without bothering to knock. "Dottie's making lunch, Tim," he said cheerfully.

Ellis laughed and stood up. "Come on, guys. You're going to love this. I'll run you over, you can leave your car here. They'll have the copies ready when we get back."

**

Dottie was a short waif of a woman in a blue caftan and bare feet. She greeted them brightly, and instantly forgot their names. Frohike had a feeling the woman was absent-minded by long habit. She ushered them into the kitchen where she served them, with great ceremony, pancakes. 

"Pancakes for lunch?" Frohike asked.

"These are _special_ pancakes," Dottie assured them. Everything that came out of her mouth seemed to be the victim of exclamation abuse. Frohike found himself wondering how on earth the woman decided which word to emphasize. It was a little like listening to Dr. Seuss Storytime. "I got the recipe from very special _friends_!"

Ellis was hiding a grin, and Frohike had a feeling he knew where this was about to go. "So when was the last time you heard from them, Dottie?" Ellis asked innocently.

"Three…" Dottie's face wrinkled and she sucked on her finger for a second, thinking. "Four, three, no, _two_! Two nights ago. _Sunday_ night." She seemed pleased to be able to pin it down.

"It's Wednesday, Dottie."

"Well, last _Wednesday_ , then."

"No, Dottie. I mean today is Wednesday. Sunday night was three days ago. But that's okay, Dottie. It doesn't really matter exactly what day. What'd they say this time?"

Dottie beamed, excited. "We're nearing a time of _great importance_!" she said proudly. "This window is only the _beginning_! They want _us_ to understand. They want to _help_!"

Frohike stifled a sigh and took a bite of pancake to cover his annoyance and embarrassment as Dottie babbled on. He really hated these types. He knew enough about the ETEs to know that they weren't looking to commune with Earthlings in the interests of peace and love. The pancake turned out to be a mistake, though. It was almost exactly as light and flavorful as plywood. No butter or syrup had been offered, which was a shame, because it was about the only thing that'd help him choke down the five Frisbees on his plate. Ellis' grin was just short of demonic. The man was going to hear about this.

"You're not eating!" Dottie suddenly interrupted herself to say to them. "This is a _special_ recipe I got from my _special_ friends!"

"The aliens gave you a pancake recipe," Frohike said leadenly. 

She frowned at him. "Reticulans. And yes, they certainly _did_. I was on my way home from the library one night—"

"She works there," Ellis explained.

"—and I hadn't yet had dinner, I was running so _late_. We'd _just_ had a huge shipment of new travel books I had to sort and code, and it was _all_ so interesting I sort of lost track of time."

Imagine that, Frohike thought, but he didn't say anything.

"Now usually," she said with creepy sincerity, "they come for me when I'm already in bed, but since I was running so _very_ late, they turned up while I was at the bus stop, and of course I _knew_ I wouldn't get home until the next morning. But since I'd skipped lunch, and I hadn't had dinner, I _begged_ them for something to eat, and they made me pancakes. They gave me some to bring home, and then the next day the _commander_ dictated the recipe to me while I was on my lunch break."

"That's very interesting," J. Wayne contributed, trying as hard as he could to be polite. "Would it be okay for you to share the recipe?"

She beamed at him. "Of _course_ , young man, I've forgotten your name…"

"Wayne, ma'am."

"And so _polite_!" She cast a momentary glare at Frohike, and Ellis broke into a coughing fit.

"Sorry, sorry," he managed. "Dottie, can I have some water?"

"Oh, of _course_. And I'll get _you_ the recipe, Wendell, you said? I like to keep copies of it for when people _ask_. People can really be _so_ intrigued by the Reticulans, don't you think? But I think it's only natural. They're so _fascinating_ …" She rambled on in that fashion as she went to the sink to get Ellis some water. 

The look Frohike gave him would have burned chalk. Ellis fought down more laughter. 

"Did you ask the commander about the cattle mutilations, Dottie?" Ellis asked once he could talk again.

"Cattle mutilations are bad karma. _They_ have _nothing_ to do with _that_ ," she said firmly. "It's the _government_ trying to frighten people into thinking the Reticulans are a _threat_ to us."

J. Wayne nodded. "Yes, that makes sense. Thank you for this," he waved the recipe card slightly. "They don't use salt?"

Dottie shook her head emphatically. "Salt is _terribly_ bad for you. The commander told me they _never_ use it."

Dottie spent the next three hours detailing her history as a "selectee", explaining the vaguely optimistic pronouncements made by the commander and the Reticulans, and pontificating on how to make the perfect flavorless pancake that weighed about the same as a manhole cover. Between topics, she patted J. Wayne on the head and praised him like a puppy, and glared at Frohike. Ellis excused himself several times to make calls, which Frohike figured was just a blatant ruse to let him dash out to the car to laugh himself sick. 

It was nearly four when they finally escaped from Dottie's Interstellar House of Pancakes. Frohike didn't say anything until they were about halfway back to the offices. Then he turned to Ellis and commented, "Thanks, Tim. I owe you."

Ellis laughed the rest of the way back, then he helped carry boxes of the documents out to their rental. "Where's your bus?" he asked curiously. "The boys got it?" 

"Yeah, they're driving out. With Jimmy," he added. 

Ellis jerked his head at J. Wayne. "He's not your new copy?"

Frohike shrugged. "Freelance. He just quit _Powder Keg_."

"Assholes," Ellis offered casually. "Keep in touch, Mel. We should have more for you tomorrow, and I'll be interested to see what you make of all this."

Frohike nodded. "We've got some people to talk to. We'll holler when we've got something."

**

With each mile that passed and nothing weird happened, Byers felt his optimism for the trip return. Jimmy seemed faintly disappointed that they didn't meet anyone else they knew, but Byers didn't mind. 

The call to Frohike was distracted, since they were immersed in the material Ellis had given them. Byers was philosophical about Payter. "He'll come around," he predicted.

"He wants to talk," Frohike agreed. "Where are you guys stopping tonight?"

They'd decided on a good-sized town that, it turned out, was holding some sort of corn-oriented festival. 

It was a nice evening and people seemed to be gathered in a park in the town center. As they walked across the street between the hotel and the restaurant, they could hear the strains of a brass band playing.

"Corn Days," Langly muttered. "Yokels."

Byers smiled. "No Wal-Mart though."

Langly snickered. "True."

It wasn't exactly a backwoods, though, as the hostess told them they'd probably have a fifteen minute wait for a table. Byers smiled, Jimmy shrugged, and Langly, not one for sitting still, disappeared to check his email while they were waiting.

**

Langly locked the door behind him and turned past a semi in the darkening parking lot, to find himself face to face, or face to plush mask, anyway, with a guy in a Mickey Mouse costume. At least he hoped it was a costume, or maybe two, in that Mickey seemed to be in pirate drag. Presumably this was some kind of fallout from Corn Days, though he had no idea where any of it fit in, especially in Montana. "What's with the pirate getup?" he asked, curiously. "We're landlocked, right?"

Mickey cocked his head to one side, tipped his hat, tapped his eye patch with one gloved finger, and gestured Langly closer. 

"The parrot have a name?" Langly asked, taking the necessary steps towards him, and that was pretty much the last thing he remembered for a while.

**

Byers was shaking him, which hardly seemed fair, since he'd just barely gotten to sleep. And of course Byers had swiped all the blankets again. And, come to think of it, this bed wasn't very—Oh. He opened his eyes, one at a time, as slowly as possible, giving the universe ample time to decide he _wasn't_ laying on the pavement of a parking lot on the Montana border. The universe was its usual compliant self, in that that's exactly where it decided he should be.

He sat up, groaning. Something fell off his chest and clunked onto the ground beside him. Jimmy picked it up. It made a pathetic lowing noise, and they all stared at it.

"It's a cow-in-a-can," Jimmy said, baffled. "You know. You turn it over and it moos."

Byers blinked, and dismissed it for the moment. "Are you okay, Ri? What happened?"

"Did anybody get the name of that… mouse?" he asked helplessly.

Byers' look of irritated concern got a lot less irritated and a lot more concerned. "What mouse? Are you okay?"

Langly sighed and leaned against Byers. "A Mickey Mouse in a pirate costume sucker-punched me."

Jimmy stared. "Maybe he has a concussion or something. Do you know your name, Langly? How many fingers am I holding up?"

"Jimmy…" Byers ran his fingers over Langly's head, looking for lumps. "Ri? Do you think you need a doctor?"

Langly shook his head cautiously. "I just want to lay down, okay?"

Byers shrugged slightly, reserving judgment until they had some light. "On your feet, then. Jimmy, help me get him back to the room."

Jimmy picked him up by his shoulders and stood him on his feet, half-pushing him along behind Byers. Langly didn't complain, which worried Byers a little. He flipped the light switch and turned to look at his lover. "Lay down, I'll get a damp cloth. Your cheek is puffy. Somebody hit you?"

Langly slumped onto the bed. "Not somebody, Mickey Mouse." He glared at Jimmy. "Put that fucking thing down, will ya?"

Jimmy put down the cow-in-a-can, looking faintly abashed. "Are you sure you didn't trip over this?"

Langly sighed gustily. "Yes, I'm sure. A Mickey Mouse in a pirate costume decked me."

Byers came back with the washcloth and applied it to Langly's cheekbone. Langly hissed in pain and pulled back.

"Maybe we should get you to a doctor, Ri."

"Oh, yes, please," Langly said with trenchant sarcasm. "Let's find a doctor and tell him I got clocked by a big mouse. That's probably pretty common here, do you think? I don't think he'd laugh for, you know, much more than an hour or so, before he called the cops."

Jimmy blinked a little. "Maybe we _should_ call the police."

Byers shook his head. "There's no point. We don't want to call attention to ourselves."

"I hate the fucking police," Langly muttered.

"We didn't do anything wrong," Jimmy insisted. "Why does it matter if they know who we are?"

"Jimmy, with what we do—it's really just better if we stay off the radar as much as we can. Our visibility is high enough, and we don't want to make it worse if there's no need. Besides, if they found him, we'd have to stay here while they took the report, and maybe a lineup—"

Langly interrupted. "Yeah, that'd be fun. 'Can you pick out the mouse that popped you one, sir? You're sure it's not the one with the cape? How about the short white one with the tall friend? He was plotting world domination earlier.'"

Byers came close to laughing. He stepped on the impulse and continued to try to explain. "—and we'd end up coming back for a trial, possibly."

Langly grunted. "Oh, that'd look good in the local papers. 'DC Journalist Testifies Against Pirate Mouse In Assault'. No thanks. Anyway, I don't need anybody deciding I'm crazy. There's enough people out there who want our heads. Let's not give 'em them on a silver platter, okay? No fucking reports, no fucking doctors, and no fucking cops."

Byers sighed. "Jimmy, why don't you go see if you can get us some dinner for take out." Once the door had closed, he sat next to Langly. "Does your head hurt?"

"Not really. Just my face." Langly seemed mildly disappointed at not being able to make a dramatic bid for sympathy over it. He shrugged. "Just where he thumped me."

"Someone in a Mickey Mouse costume?"

"Yeah. And a pirate costume."

Byers leaned in to check his eyes. They seemed okay. "I think I may need a little more explanation. There were two of them?"

"No." Langly struggled to sit up, taking the washcloth away. "The guy was wearin' a Mickey Mouse costume, but it had, like, a pirate hat, and an eye patch, and a sword, okay?" He closed his eyes. "And a stuffed parrot on his shoulder."

"In Montana? It's landlocked. Maybe some kind of weird Corn Days thing, I guess. But why would he attack you?"

"Beats me. It's not like he said anything. He just threw a punch at me."

"And then he gave you a cow-in-a-can." 

Langly shrugged slightly. "I don't remember that part. I guess so."

Byers chewed on his lower lip, and gently pulled a twig out of Langly's hair. "You must have been out for about twenty minutes, you know. I'd really feel a lot better if you'd see a doctor."

"No way," Langly said firmly. "No fucking way. Not after the last time you made me see a doctor." He opened his eyes and found himself staring at John's intently concerned expression. Langly felt a little guilty. He grabbed John's hand where it was anxiously twisting his long hair, and brought it to his mouth for a kiss. "It wasn't that long, anyway. I was on my way back when it happened. I'm okay, Johnny," he said softly. "It's okay. I promise."

Byers sighed. "I worry."

The kiss had turned into something with a little more tongue. "I know," Langly mumbled into his fingers. 

"Ri, for God's sake," Byers said, exasperated. He tried to pull his hand away but Langly held on.

"You're so worried," Langly suggested slyly, "you could give me some first aid."

Byers pulled him close and held him tightly, still caught between worry and relief. "You need a doctor."

"Nah. I _need_ …" he grinned, "the kiss of life."

Byers sighed again. "You _need_ a straightjacket," he muttered into the straw-blond hair. 

Langly twisted in his arms and latched onto his neck. Byers just knew he was going to leave a mark. "What the hell am I supposed to do with you?"

"I can think of some things." Byers could feel Langly grinning.

Byers had known him long enough that he could guess at a few of them, and he was also pretty sure that none of the things Langly had in mind involved Jimmy coming in with a couple of bags of food, which is in fact what happened next. Byers pulled discreetly away and tried to straighten his collar, but from the way Jimmy was carefully not staring, he had a feeling the mark was still visible.

"It's burgers and stuff, okay? You didn't say what you wanted."

Byers nodded. "That's fine. Thank you, Jimmy." He took the bag Jimmy was holding out and set it on the table. "We'll see you in the morning, all right?"

"Sure thing." Jimmy moved closer and lowered his voice to what he probably thought of as a whisper. "You know you gotta keep an eye on him, right? Wake him up every couple hours in case he's got a concussion. Otherwise he could die. That's what happens when a guy gets tagged like that."

Langly, behind them, made a noise that didn't sound exactly like "Thank you so much for the excellent advice," and Byers sighed. "He's okay, Jimmy. I'll make sure. See you in the morning."

Jimmy went next door, and Byers turned around to see Langly rolling his eyes.

"He means well," Byers commented.

Langly rooted through the bag. "Shame he doesn't think well."

Getting put down by a cartoon character didn't seem to have dented Langly's appetite at all, and Byers cautiously concluded he was probably all right. 

Langly looked up. "Get your ass over here or I'll eat yours too, okay?" Byers hesitated, and Langly grinned. "Relax, Johnny. I'm not gonna bite _you_. Not till after dinner, anyway."

Byers sighed and shook his head. "Do you think some aspirin would help?"

Langly shrugged. "Couldn't hurt."

"All right. Did he bring any drinks?"

"Couple cans of Coke. Must've hit the vending machine."

"Well, he's thinking, at least," Byers said, taking the washcloth and disappearing into the bathroom for the aspirin.

"Yeah, he put 'em in on top. Crushed the hamburgers."

Byers came back and handed him the washcloth again. "Here. Hold this to your face. The big mouse that hit you may have disappeared, but you're going to have one where it hit you in the morning. Keep the cloth on it, and maybe the swelling will go down."

"Very funny," Langly grumbled. 

Byers rubbed his shoulder and handed him the aspirin. "Take these, okay? You're sure your head doesn't hurt."

"Just my face." He glanced at Byers. "It's worse when I talk. Maybe you should see if you can keep me quiet."

Byers let out an explosive half-laugh. "Short of a gag…"

"Kinky, John."

Byers shook his head, but finally smiled. "You definitely need your head examined, you know that? Every time something like this happens, you're all over me."

Langly grinned. "It ain't just weirdness that makes me horny."

"No, it's practically everything."

"No, really. I've given this some thought. I think I don't have that fight-or-flight reflex they talk about. I think I have the flight-or-fuck one."

Byers pulled him close again and rubbed his back. "It's a good thing we're keeping you out of the gene pool, then."

"Make love, not war." Snickering. "Wouldn't it be a better world if everybody was like me?"

Byers' eyes widened in horror, or something closely akin to it. "Ri, if everybody was like you, I'd be dead of exhaustion by now."

"I don't share."

"You don't play very well with others, either," Byers observed.

"You don't think so?" Langly was doing his best to persuade with one hand, until he finally let go of the washcloth and went for it with both hands. 

Byers yelped. "Your hands are cold!"

Langly laughed. "Let me warm you up."

"For God's sake…"

"Hey, what if Jimmy's right and I die from brain damage or something? You want to have refused my last request?"

"You must have brain damage. I can't imagine any other reason you'd suggest Jimmy was right about anything." He regarded his lover for a long moment with the serious blue eyes. "I don't think so. You got hit pretty hard, even I can tell that." He pulled Langly's head close again, carefully, and held him against his chest. "I think you need to just sleep."

Langly knew better than to whine. It wouldn't change John's mind. And besides, it wasn't unpleasant to have John's arms around him like this. It just wasn't—everything he wanted right now. But there were ways to get what he wanted, even if he didn't have The Pout working for him. So he forced himself to relax and kissed John's chest gently, sighing. "I'm okay, Johnny. Really."

Some of the tension went out of Byers. "I worry." He played with Langly's hair. "Listen, Ri, maybe I should get Jimmy over here to keep an eye on you—"

Langly made a noise that wasn't wholly in sympathy with the plan, but Byers continued. "—and I'll go check things out at this festival. See if I can find your mouse."

"No thanks. Keep Jimmy the hell away from me."

Byers almost chuckled. "Are you afraid you won't be able to control yourself?"

Langly snorted. "Fuck the mouse, John. It's not like we'd press charges if you find him."

Byers shook his head. "I just don't like not knowing why this happened. This morning I thought someone might be following us. It worries me."

Langly's eyes narrowed. He'd noticed that too, but hadn't said anything. He decided on a distraction. "Listen, I'm gonna take a shower. Maybe it'll help." He stood up and swayed slightly, careful not to overdo it.

Byers grabbed him. "Hang on, you're going to fall over. You need to sleep, Ringo. You can shower in the morning."

Langly shook his head. "My back's sore. I need a shower, Johnny."

Byers met his eyes, and then sighed heavily. "You win," he said in resignation. "Let's go take a shower." He glared at Langly. "But I want it on the record that I know exactly what you're up to."

Langly struggled for innocent. "What?"

Byers shook his head. "Asshole."

"Very nice, John."

"Come on." Byers led him into the small bathroom and helped him strip. 

Langly could see him searching his body for any signs he'd been hurt elsewhere. Some of the guilt returned. "He just pegged me, John. I'm okay."

"You said your back was sore," Byers said suspiciously, turning him around. "You must have hit the ground pretty hard."

Langly shrugged again. "I guess so. I just need a hot shower."

The stumble he made getting into the shower wasn't faked, but it was easier to let Byers think it was. There was a fine line between a Byers sympathetic enough to go along with what Langly wanted and a Byers so worried there was no arguing with him. Letting Byers think he was exaggerating a genuine injury was usually just the right note, though the shower might have been a giveaway. Playing innocent could be hard when you were, well, hard. He followed John's eyes and grinned lopsidedly. 

"Told you I'm fine."

Byers sighed and rubbed his neck. Langly leaned into it. "You're not fine. You're deranged. Move over and soak your back. Your shoulder looks like it got the worst of it." 

Langly twisted his neck to see. "It's kinda red, isn't it."

"Yes," Byers sighed again. "Did he say _anything_ to you?"

"Nope. He just laid me out."

"I'm starting to wonder if this whole thing was a mistake. Frohike says Payter isn't talking anymore."

Langly glanced at him. "The MIB visit?"

"Probably," Byers admitted. "Fro thinks he'll talk sooner or later. But this whole trip just has me… on edge."

Langly shrugged a little tiredly. "It's been weird, hasn't it."

Byers shook his head. "I'll say." He supported Langly under the hot water for a few minutes. "Feel better?"

"Yeah." Langly nodded. "I needed this."

"I know." Byers smiled. "'Fuck the mouse'?"

Langly laughed. "Fuck the mouse."

"Langly?"

"Yeah?"

"Did you eat all the fries, or just most of them?"

"Just most of 'em. And I expect to be rewarded for my restraint."

Byers sighed again. "Do I get to eat dinner before you fuck me into exhaustion?"

Langly grinned in triumph. "Anything you want, babe."

**

"I hate this town," Frohike commented idly on the way back from a very late dinner. It had taken several hours for the pancakes to settle.

"It's not, technically, raining."

"Marble-sized hailstones. Even in July, I'd be using an umbrella."

"I think they might actually be illegal here."

"Yeah, okay. That wouldn't surprise me. Still."

They gazed out the windshield at a green-haired woman in a short skirt, flannel shirt, and Birks, standing on the sidewalk, waiting for a crosswalk signal. If she'd noticed the unusual weather, she gave no sign of it.

"It's not like there's even any traffic!"

J. Wayne shook his head. "I don't think I've ever seen anyone jaywalk in this city." He dismissed it. "What book did you guys do with WETHR Front?"

"We've done two. The first one was the hoaxed crop circles in Kennewick. It wasn't very popular. Then we helped them with one about the wave around Hanford in '97."

J. Wayne glanced at him. " _Nuclear Interests_?"

"Done your homework."

"Uh, yeah. I didn't know that was you guys."

"It wasn't, really. We did a series on it, brought in a pile of new readers for us. Got us some contacts in the anti-nuke groups. That's really as far as it went for us. After that we turned the research over to Ellis' bunch and stepped away."

"You don't get anything out of the books?"

Frohike shrugged. "We don't make a lot of money. We're too busy getting stories to worry about the accounting, really."

J. Wayne just shook his head. "Fighting the good fight. That's what it's all about for you."

Frohike smiled in the streetlights, the look of a man at ease with his work in a very strange world. "Jim Hightower calls himself an agitator. You know what an agitator is? It's the thing in the washing machine that gets all the dirt out. Sometimes I think that's what we are."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Up: Caffeine, Conspiracies, and the Fortean Nature of Fishes VIII: When Geoducks Go Bad: In which the Boys on the Bus run into a very weird critter in Big Sky Country, and J. Wayne and Frohike do indecent things with mutant geoducks, although arguably it is impossible to do decent things with a geoduck, mutant or otherwise.


	8. When Geoducks Go Bad

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I think of my pleasant condition, surrounded by Acres of Clams…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I continue to exploit and offend without permission. The Levy guy (Dr. Jay Levy, parapsychologist) is real, his rat and chicken studies exist, but were hoaxed, so I can't really say they were real. Kewaunee is real, and he thinks the invisible interdimensional Bigfeet are real, but I'm not vouching for them, or him. Equipment mentioned is real, and should not be assumed to constitute a sales pitch. I may be a pervert, but I'm no shill. The creature the boys run into in Montana has actually been reported in Texas. It has been accused of cattle and sheep mutilations. You can read more about it in the book "The Lake Worth Monster", by Sallie Ann Clarke. I didn't make up the FMG name either. That's what the original headline called it in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Dak is fictional, geoduck facts offered here are not. WUFORG is fictional, FSR could be real, if you want to assume it stands for Flying Saucer Review, or it could be fictional, if you want to pretend it doesn't stand for that. Up to you. The Estacado story is real, but obviously not given to anybody by the LGM, who, just in case your medications are wearing off, don't really exist. Jumie, Madeo, Feysen, Brown, and Coz are mine too, as is the vaguely-referred-to professor. Publication tactics mentioned are real. Ivar's makes a fabulous cup of clam chowder, so I am told. Lyrics quoted by Langly and Byers are from a song by NOFX. My apologies for the Dune joke, but be aware that if you walk without rhythm, the geoduck will still hear you coming. In fact, I'm pretty much sorry for all the movie jokes. The summary in this part is from the song, in all its variations, "Acres of Clams". (Though I think Pete Seeger substitutes "happy" for "pleasant".) The subtitle in this part is not a close enough parody that I feel compelled to apologize to anyone. Further parts still pend, so get your Shellfish is Selfish protests organized early and avoid the rush.

They picked up the metal detector on the way to the waterfront Thursday morning. Frohike checked out the specs while J. Wayne waited anxiously.

"Will it work?"

"You bet. It's a Fishers' Pulse 8X. Six feet deep, and it ignores mineralization. Not thrown off by salt water, either, which is important. This baby's a real pro."

"That's what he said you needed, yeah," the salesman offered. "That's the Version One, with the seven-five hardwired open coil. Is that gonna do it for you? Or are you gonna need the Version Two, with the interchangeable searchcoils?"

Frohike glanced at the proffered equipment wistfully, and shook his head. "No, this should be fine. We need a pinpointer, though, and extra batteries."

"No problem." He turned away to find them. "Where you guys going, if you don't mind my asking?"

J. Wayne started to say something, and Frohike nudged him. "Golden Gardens."

"Popular. I got a guy found a diamond solitaire necklace there."

Frohike smiled politely. "I bet."

He glanced back at them and grinned. "Okay, sorry. Had to try though. Making sure you'll look after the equipment. Sure you don't want the Two?"

"We're sure, yeah."

"You need maps?"

"Of Golden Gardens?" Frohike raised an eyebrow. "You figure we're gonna get lost in the parking lot, or what?"

The man laughed. "Okay. Just asking. Can I get a credit card and some ID?"

Once outside, J. Wayne wanted to know about the necklace. "You didn't sound like you believed him."

Frohike shrugged. "There's not enough metal in something like that to find it. It might happen, but it's more likely to just be the sort of thing you'd get while buying lottery tickets. 'We had a ten thousand dollar winner in here just last week,' that kind of crap."

"Oh. Why didn't we get shovels there?"

Frohike shook his head. "I know these beaches. We need heavy duty stuff, the damned things are mostly rocks. He might've had something suitable, but why let him know what we're up to. We'll swing by a hardware store."

"You think he could figure out what we're doing just from that?"

"Nah. But why get his curiosity up."

"That's pretty—" J. Wayne began. Frohike stopped him, grinning.

"Paranoid. Ain't it, though." He started the car. "You look a lot younger out of the suit, you know?"

J. Wayne grimaced. "Exactly." Frohike had expected to have to insist, being used to Byers' sense of all-weather-gear, but the kid had been prepared for stomping around on a beach. Jeans, a polo shirt, and good sneakers. He didn't look happy, but he looked good, and Frohike could appreciate the difference without really feeling compelled to do anything about either one. At the moment, anyhow.

"We need some waterproof containers, too, for samples. I want water, sand, rocks, the whole thing. Byers is always asking why we didn't bring him some weird thing it never occurred to us to collect. And considering your piece of metal, he'll probably want seaweed and bugs and worms and whatever else we can find."

"Can he analyze it all without the equipment?"

Frohike shrugged. "There's a lot of stuff in the van. Anything else, we'll make it or make do. We're that type of operation."

"You seem to make it work."

Frohike grinned. "As long as Yves doesn't get involved."

"Who's Yves?"

**

Langly was still groggy when they woke, the bruise prominent on his cheekbone. He yelped when his glasses touched it, and settled them with a great deal more care. 

Byers sighed, annoyed at himself for giving in last night. Langly obviously could have used a lot more sleep, and a lot more ice. Langly had obviously tried to restrain himself until after they'd eaten, but his hands had been all over Byers before he could get so much as a catsup packet open. Byers' IQ had dropped precipitously, and by the time they'd gotten to the food, Langly's face had puffed up to where chewing was clearly painful. He'd ignored further efforts to convince him to see a doctor, rolled over, and pretended to sleep.

Byers sat next to him on the bed and rubbed his shoulder, dinner forgotten. He'd fallen asleep draped protectively over the younger man, forgetting to set the alarm.

Not that it mattered. Jimmy pounded on the door with his usual early morning enthusiasm, sobering slightly when he saw the two of them. 

"Hey," he said hesitantly. "You guys don't look so good."

"Speak for yourself," Langly muttered.

"Maybe we should stay here today, huh? What difference is an extra day gonna make?"

Langly snorted, disappearing into the bathroom. "Not spending one more minute than I have to in this fucking dive," he said loudly. "Place needs an exterminator. Big fucking rats."

Byers shrugged. "We'll be fine, Jimmy. You can take the first shift, and we'll sleep for a while. Give us half an hour, and we'll be ready to go, okay?" He glanced towards the bathroom, where Langly was still grumbling just loudly enough to be heard over the running water. "But maybe we should wait on breakfast until we find another town."

"Hey, whatever you say, Byers." The big man held up his hands. "You're the boss. See you in a while."

He closed the door and went back to the bathroom, putting his hand on Langly's back. "How do you feel?"

Langly turned around. "How do I look?"

Byers sighed. "I should have made you keep ice on it."

Langly half-smiled. "I'll say I walked into a door."

"Oh, good. Then people will just assume I hit you."

"C'mon. It'll improve your reputation. Make you look like a badass." He grinned as much as he could. "Besides, you think I'm tellin' people some big mouse coshed me? How's that make me look?"

"I'm going to take a shower." Byers glared. "Alone."

Langly laughed.

**

Captain Dak Winnell was a huge bear of a man, with a full salt-and-pepper beard and a long graying braid down his back. He greeted them loudly, and got underway fast. "Goin' clammin', yeah?"

"Something like that," Frohike said evasively.

Winnell laughed and jerked a finger at the metal detector. "You're not treasure huntin', are ya?"

Frohike shook his head and leaned forward confidentially. "Research project. See how the new mining operation proposal impacts the mineral substrate and the water quality."

Winnell glowered. "Hope you can dig up somethin'. Love to get that dog put down."

"Not popular around here?"

"Fuck no."

"Is Deep Impacts getting a lot of community support?" J. Wayne asked. Frohike flashed him an approving look. It was the sort of cover question Byers or Mulder could come up with, and it made them sound more authentic. He'd forgotten the group, himself, and was planning to rely on his shallow knowledge of geology, and his deep grasp of bullshit.

Winnell went on at some length about Deep Impacts, and how the new operation could affect the clamming, which it seemed he was quite fond of. His special fondness was reserved for the geoduck, pronounced gooey-duck, which he described—graphically—as a giant, heavy-shelled bivalve with a neck as big and thick as his arm.

J. Wayne commented on the horse clams they'd seen on the menu the night before. Winnell laughed and laughed. "There's horse clams, son, and there's 'ducks. We call 'em horsedick clams."

J. Wayne blushed furiously, and Frohike chuckled. "They can't be that big."

Winnell gestured rudely. "We'll dig you up one, yeah? Cook it for ya, too. Tasty damn thing."

J. Wayne didn't seem delighted. "We'd need a permit, I suppose," he said hopefully.

"Got one. I can bag three a day. True fact: illegal in this state to take just the neck. Your 'duck, he can live to be hundred, hundred-forty years old. Pin crabs live in the shell, snackin' on the live 'duck. You get a few baby pin crabs, maybe, or a couple, y'know—" he winked broadly—"husband an' wife pin crab, you think about _that_."

Frohike was thinking about it. In fact, the barrage of pointless facts was making him horny. He sighed and wandered back to check the equipment, cursing Mulder rabidly.

Winnell shot him a look. "'S'with him?" he said to J. Wayne.

J. Wayne wasn't sure, but they could discuss it later. "Crab phobia." He changed the subject. "But they're filter feeders, and with the mining… They must be concentrating the heavy metals."

Winnell nodded. "Mercury mostly." He seemed cheerfully unconcerned by the prospect. "But you can tell me what they've got in 'em, yeah?"

"After we've analyzed the samples, yes, we should be able to sort some of this out."

Frohike directed Winnell to the site they needed. He was skeptical. "Clammin's no good out here. All kindsa crap in the water."

"Well, we're looking for pollutants," Frohike shrugged.

"Okay, you're the geniuses. Guess ya know what you're doin'."

Winnell insisted on following them out to the beach itself with the equipment and a big metal tube he called his "duck gun". The highly specialized arsenal of geoduck-digging seemed to consist of the "gun", a shallow, sturdy scoop, and a bucket. He paddled the rubber raft to the site with strong strokes, lecturing all the way about the wildlife, and how he felt it had been affected by the mining. 

He broke off as they got into the shallows. "That's a show."

"What is?"

Winnell nodded at the sand under them, in about six inches of water. "See the little volcano thingie? That's a show. Shows ya where the 'duck is, yeah? 'Duck about three feet down there, maybe less. You got good tides right now."

There was an alarmingly fetid offshore breeze coming at them. J. Wayne wrinkled his nose. "Something's rotting. Dead animal?"

Winnell raked his eyes across the beach. "Don't see how it could be. No gulls. No corbies." He sniffed again. "Don't smell right, either."

Frohike's press thumbs were pricking. "We'd better check it out," he said slowly. "It could be important."

As it turned out, they didn't need the metal detector after all. They just followed the smell. Frohike, in the lead, jumped back as a sudden stream of salt water nailed him in the face. He wiped it away. "What the fuck was that?"

Winnell laughed. "'Duck. You stepped on 'im."

"Where?"

"He's down there. He felt ya movin' around and sucked in his neck real quick. Shoots water out at ya. People think when the 'duck squirts at 'em, he's gotta be racin' away down there under the sand. But he ain't. Grownup 'duck, he don't move much. He ain't got the equipment. He moves his neck, sure, but his shell pretty much stays put."

Frohike sighed. "Fascinating." He was a lot more careful about where he stepped as he tracked the smell a couple hundred yards down the beach to a place that was a lot closer to the surf than the high tide line.

"Well, whaddaya make of that?" Winnell asked rhetorically.

The three of them gazed at a hole in the rocks and wet sand that seemed to be filled with—well, who knows. Some slimy day-glo purple muck with an oily pink sheen. It wasn't dead, at least not all of it, as it writhed in the pit. The smell was almost overpowering, and they covered their faces with their hands.

"I'm gonna go over there a ways," Winnell said, looking queasy. 

Frohike was glad Langly wasn't around, frankly. "Let's get some samples. And let's cap the bottles *tightly*."

J. Wayne nodded and knelt on the rocks, pulling a knife and some tweezers out of one of the boxes, and reaching into the pit with commendable professionalism. He scraped at one of the most decomposed spots and dropped the mess into an open container, which he handed to Frohike. A little bolder, he tried scraping at one of the fresher parts of the mess, only to have the entire mass give a whining hum and retreat to the other side of the pit. J. Wayne pulled back abruptly, and Frohike leaned over intently. 

"What do you suppose that was?"

J. Wayne shook his head. "No idea." He looked in again, and reached back in with the knife. "Look at that," he said, curiously.

"Holy shit." There was a dull gleam underneath the slime. He put his hand on J. Wayne's arm, images of the black oil before his eyes. "Gloves. We don't know what that is, and I don't want to take any chances."

The kid nodded and dug through the box for a pair of gloves. With a few more prods and squalling noises, J. Wayne extracted a piece of metal with a seastar—what was left of a seastar—clinging to it. The star had the same slimy purple coating, and the center of it was gone. Two arms were also missing, apparently eaten away from inside. J. Wayne shook it slightly, and the star fractured and fell off. 

"Weirdness."

The slime seemed to be coming out of a small round hole in the bar in thick, ropy strands. "Gross," J. Wayne muttered. "What the hell is this?"

Frohike shook his head. "I think we found ourselves an alien."

"No way."

Frohike gave him an odd look and turned back to the metal. "I don't know. But we'd better take as much of it with us as we can. Is there more metal down there?"

They dropped it into a large container and listened as it made the whining noise again, retracting from the plastic sides. Frohike closed it fast. J. Wayne had leaned back into the pit when a low surf washed across the rocks he was kneeling on. Only Frohike's fast reflexes kept him from landing face first in the muck. He grabbed the kid by the shoulder and waited for him to calm down a little. They watched as the salty water sloshed over the thing, making it pulse and spread out again.

They'd almost relaxed when Winnell let out a whoop. "Clam-ho!" he bellowed, wiping gritty seawater off his face. He grinned wildly at them and slammed the bottom of the "duck gun" into the sand. He stomped on the edges to work it in, and dropped to his knees, scooping away at the wet sand. Within a minute, he was head-first into the hole he'd dug, and J. Wayne shuddered. Frohike pulled him to his feet and dragged him over to Winnell, ass in the air, both hands in the hole, digging like a demented greyhound. The gun was keeping the wet sand from filling the hole back in, and Winnell was moving almost too fast to see.

Frohike blinked. "Spectator sport, I guess."

Winnell's muffled war-whoop was followed out of the hole by Winnell's head and arms, and—

"Christ. It's like that worm in _Dune_ ," Frohike said in awe.

"Or an elephant trunk," J. Wayne suggested.

Winnell grinned, dangling the thing by the bulging shell. "Horsedick." The thing's dark muscle tissue wasn't completely enclosed in the shell, which was almost ten inches long, and slightly rectangular in shape. The neck hung an improbable foot and a half downward. "This 'un's a bitty guy," he said happily. He grabbed the siphon and tugged at it. Silted water squirted out, and the thing seemed to resign itself to its fate, the brown wrinkled muscle stretching to almost two and a half feet. "Lot of 'em, full three feet long, yeah? Lotta meat on these guys. About three pounds, minus the shell. 'Bout a pound of that's adductor, neck, and mantle, the eatin' parts. The adults don't got much of a foot, so when you spot a show, you can figure he's down there, probably been for decades. He can't dig in much without the foot. You throw 'im on the beach, he's good as dead, yeah? He's a canny critter, your 'duck, but he can't burrow once he's grownup." 

Frohike tore his eyes away from the thing, and took a deep breath. "Fascinating," he said again. "We'd better get back to collecting samples. Hey, Captain?"

"Dak."

"Dak, sorry. You ever see anything like that purple mess over there?"

Winnell set the clam in the bucket and rocked back on his heels. "Nope. Like a big dead sea slug, maybe. You think the pollution's doin' that?"

Frohike shook his head. "We don't know yet. This is going to take us a while, so why don't you find yourself another clam."

Winnell looked puzzled. "What for? I ain't sellin' 'em, and I can't eat more'n one. You guys change your mind?"

They both backed away, shaking their heads. "No, that's okay. We've… got dinner… with some people tonight, to discuss… things," he finished lamely. Under the pressure of dinner with the thing in the bucket, Frohike's usual glibness had deserted him. "Sorry. Just too busy."

Winnell nodded, unfazed. "I don't take more'n a man needs. Sea's not endless anymore."

"Good thinking," Frohike said quickly, and headed back for the pit, J. Wayne trailing behind him. 

He grabbed several garbage bags from the box, putting them one inside the other. "I think we'd better take all of this with us."

"You don't think it might be dangerous to have around?"

Frohike shook his head again, face grim. "I think it might be dangerous to _leave_ around. The way it ate through that starfish, I don't think we want to chance it being found by some more wildlife—or by people. You ever see that movie _Evolution_?"

J. Wayne nodded and grabbed the shovel. "Good point. Do you think the plastic will hold it?"

"Beats me. I don't think it's going to eat through it, if that's what you're asking. It doesn't seem to like plastic. And we don't have any other choices."

It didn't like metal, either. They managed to slop it into the bag in several clumps. It made a noise like falling, decayed whale blubber, and when it touched the plastic it whined briefly and seemed to contract in on itself. They got a lot of the substrate around it, not wanting to leave any part of the goo behind, and Frohike tied the bags as tightly as possible.

"Man, that smells awful."

Behind them, Winnell, who had followed them and stopped about ten feet away, bellowed again. "Clam-ho!"

J. Wayne made a face. "I hope he's not counting on us for dinner," he said in a low voice.

Frohike gagged and nudged the bag with his foot. "After this, I may never eat again."

"What the fuck?" Winnell said, and they turned to stare at him. Dripping off his shirt was a viscous yellow substance. He stared back at them. "What the fuck is that?" He touched the stuff, and pulled his hand away fast, wiping it on his jeans. "Shit, it burns."

Frohike turned back to J. Wayne. "I've got a bad feeling about this."

J. Wayne nodded as Winnell stripped off his shirt. "I think we'd better dig that up, too."

"Never seen a clam do that before. They shoot seawater, yeah? It's sandy, but I never seen it yellow like that, and it sure the fuck never burned."

Frohike took the shirt from him and stuffed it in another plastic bag. "We're going to need to analyze that. And we need to get what's down there, too."

Winnell shrugged at them. "Okay." He stopped and looked back. "I think I better use a shovel on this'n." He stomped the duck gun back into the sand, staying well out of the way of the yellow streams. 

J. Wayne handed him the shovel and picked up the box of empty containers. "I'm going to get some more samples."

Winnell dug in carefully, still keeping his posture way back so the yellow goo wouldn't hit him again. After a few moments, the shovel clanked against something hard. Winnell looked up. "'Duck shell," he said, puzzled. He dug in a little deeper, and cautiously flipped up a shovelful of wet sand, leaving it upside-down in the hole. They both looked in. 

Winnell covered his nose with his hand. "The _fuck's_ that?" 

Frohike did the same. "Weirdness," he breathed.

It looked—Well, it looked repulsive. And it smelled far worse. It seemed to be four geoduck necks growing out of the same blistered and malformed shell. The four dark brown necks had the same oily pink sheen to them, and were grown into each other in places, and in other places seemed to be rotting away. Exposed, it writhed violently in the hole. Yellow fluid with the consistency of warm shampoo leaked copiously from each abruptly truncated siphon. It made a grating, whining noise that set the teeth on edge and had the potential to build to a throbbing headache.

Frohike was glad Langly wasn't around. He was having a hard enough time hanging onto breakfast himself. He gave the previously-potted geoduck a look. "You know, Dak. I don't think it's safe to be eating anything off this beach."

Winnell nodded, eyes wide. "Gotta agree. Guys wanna take him for a sample?"

Frohike grimaced. "Not really, but I guess we'd better." 

Winnell nudged the thing in the hole with the shovel blade, and it started making the noise again. "Fuck."

J. Wayne appeared, looking over Frohike's shoulder. "Holy shit."

Frohike nodded silently.

"I don't think we should just put _that_ in a garbage bag," J. Wayne said worriedly.

Frohike shook his head. "Dak, can you loan us your bucket?"

"Won't fit. Do you one better. I got a cooler chest, 'bout that? Put a lid on the fucker."

"Yeah—good idea." Winnell headed back to get the cooler while Frohike kept an eye on the clam, or what used to be a clam, or whatever. 

J. Wayne shrugged finally. "Do we need any other samples?"

Frohike gave him a look. "In addition to these things? No. I think Byers'll have plenty to look at." He shook his head again. "God."

**

Langly hadn't eaten much at breakfast, chewing still obviously painful. Byers had given in and gone back to the counter to plead for an early chocolate milkshake.

The shiner had garnered a few odd looks, but no one commented, a fact that didn't seem to help his mood as much as the milkshake did. Jimmy, with unusual tact, refrained from making mouse jokes until Langly actually fell asleep, for which Byers was grateful. He was running out of threats to make against the big man. He didn't make them often, and didn't really have many to work with when the occasion presented itself.

**

J. Wayne had insisted on paying Winnell for the cooler, giving him enough money to ensure his complete silence about the expedition, and Frohike had wrapped it in several layers of plastic and duct tape, which finally seemed to contain the smell. They could still hear it making a grating noise, so they left it, and the plastic garbage bags full of the slime, in the trunk of the rental car while they went to rent a storage locker. Frohike didn't want either of the things in the hotel rooms. "I don't want to think what could happen if the maid knocked it over or something."

After that, they got another cooler to put the slime thing in, which they did without bothering to take it out of the bags. More plastic and tape, and a very solid lock for the door of the unit, and they headed back to the hotel to clean up.

"I hate to think how we smell," Frohike commented. "I need a Mulder-length shower."

J. Wayne grinned. "How long's that?"

Frohike grinned back, still trying to rid his mind of the image of the things. "Till the hot water runs out."

J. Wayne laughed. "Before or after you get yours?"

"After. I'm no fool. And he's not exactly what you'd call a morning person, anyhow. I'm gonna make some calls—after we clean up—and see if there's some people who can talk to us about this stuff. Maybe someone at the University can take a look at our slimy friend in the bucket and tell us if there's anything wrong with him."

"What about the other samples?"

"I don't want to let those out of our hands just yet. Not until Byers gets a look at them."

**

The offices of WUFORG were just as busy as WETHR Front had been. Frohike paused at the first desk he came to and asked for Jeff Madeo. The extremely distracted young woman covered the phone with one hand and waved across the room. "He's in his office. If you get past Jumie, tell him Kewaunee's invisible Bigfeet are back, and they'd like to see him."

Frohike shook his head. "I'll pass that along."

There was a lot of shouting coming from the small room walled off from the rest of the offices. The door slammed open suddenly, and two men exited, one still hollering. "Just get me fuckin' pictures before I shove that camera up your ass!"

The younger man fled. The other man, the shouter, turned to a woman at a desk. " _Jumie!_ Where the fuck is Feysen?"

"He called to reschedule," she said calmly. "He'll be here at five."

"He better fuckin' be!" He turned again and spotted Frohike. "Mel! You old son of a bitch! I shoulda figured you'd be draggin' your sorry ass out here! Where's your damn boys?" He almost shoved Frohike into his office, following. He was about to close the door when Frohike reached an arm out and grabbed J. Wayne. 

"The kid's with me, Jeff. The boys are on their way out. And your little girl out there says to tell you Kewaunee's invisible Bigfeet want to talk to you. Don't tell me you're still listening to that crackpot, Jeff. Bigfoot's a hoax, everyone knows that."

"Everyone but Kewaunee. Who's the kid? You finally replace that big dumb guy?"

"Nah. He's driving out with the boys. I see Jumie's still putting up with you."

"In that fucking rattletrap of yours? You guys always were cheap." He grinned widely. "Jumie'll be with me till hell freezes over. I'd be dead without her. She knows it, I know it. I pay her extra and don't call her names, and she quits twice a week and runs my fucking life. Take a seat, tell me what the hell's up with you since it seems I got some time on my hands."

Frohike grinned back. "What, you're gonna stand up the Bigfeet?"

Madeo laughed. "Yeah, well, fuck them. Time's just another goddamn dimension, so they oughtta be used to the wait."

Frohike shoveled a pile of folders off a chair and gestured J. Wayne to sit while he took the other one. "This is Jeff Madeo. Jeff, J. Wayne Arthur. Formerly of _Powder Keg_."

"Assholes," Madeo said conversationally. "Nice to meet ya, Jay."

"J. Wayne," Frohike corrected him, and watched the kid wince. Madeo didn't notice. "Never seen the place this busy, Jeff."

"Tell me about it. We got sightings coming out our ass."

"Ah." Frohike nodded wisely, trying not to grin. "Anal probes."

Madeo laughed, a big booming noise. "Figure of speech. I got a bone to pick with you guys, Mel! I hear you gave _FSR_ that Estacado story."

Frohike shrugged. "Sorry, Jeff. We owed them."

"Couldn't you have given 'em something smaller?" Madeo demanded. "Shit, Estacado turned out to be _huge_."

Frohike nodded. "We didn't know it was going to turn out that big, or we'd have run it ourselves, conflict or no."

"Well, that'll teach you to cut your buddy Jeff out. When it got that big, we'd have given it back to you."

"The hell you would have," Frohike said with obvious disbelief. 

Madeo laughed, not the slightest bit abashed. "We'd have shared credit at least. Come on, Mel, you know me."

"Which is why I don't believe that for a damned minute."

"Come on. We ever screwed you before?"

"Walla Walla ring any bells for you?"

Madeo slapped his knee. "Aw, that was just a little friendly competition."

"Yeah, that's what they all say after they bend you over. So what's going on out here?"

"You tell me. You didn't come all this way for the weather!"

"That's for damned sure."

Madeo shrugged, spun his chair halfway around, and dug through a pile of folders on the table behind him. "Maury, right?"

"Deltas."

Madeo found the file he wanted and turned back, thumping it onto his desk. "MIBs," he said challengingly.

"Old news," Frohike said, feigning disinterest.

J. Wayne watched them watch each other like poker players over a high stakes hand. Frohike broke first, or at least that's how it looked. 

"Fred Crisman," Frohike said finally.

Madeo's eyes narrowed. "What about him."

"He's named in the '68 OCC letter to Garrison, did you know that?"

"Never heard of it," Madeo said, considering.

"Oh, that's right." Frohike was smug. "You guys are just UFOs. OCC is Bay of Pigs."

"He was involved in Bay of Pigs?"

"Looks like it." Frohike grabbed a sheet of notepaper off Madeo's desk and scribbled something on it, handing it across.

Madeo looked it over, stood up, and went to the door. He opened it and leaned out, yelling. "Jumie! Give this to Coz. See what he can dig up." He came back and leaned his heavy frame against the wall. "Okay, you got my attention, Mel. What else do you know about Crisman?"

"Garrison passed along a rumor he was Majestic 12."

"No fuckin' way! Where'd he get that from?"

Frohike shrugged, enjoying himself. "I was hoping you could help us find out. With your crack staff and all."

Madeo grinned, but stifled it abruptly. "You're not gonna give this to _FSR_ if we help you get it, are you?"

"Nope. You've got two weeks to dig something up, and we'll synch printing and share the story. Credits. Exclusives for both papers, we'll refer and you'll refer."

"A month. We print first, you come after, the next week. You'll want access to our files, but you don't print anything from them without a written agreement."

"The files are fine, we don't want to take what's yours by right. But you get three weeks, and we print together, or I'm not sharing what we know and you can dig it up on your own and hope we don't beat you to it. We've got a head start," Frohike reminded him.

Madeo regarded him for a minute or so. "Okay, deal." They shook hands.

Frohike stood up. "I'll be back to check out the files tomorrow. In the meantime, I have to see a guy about a clam."

Madeo laughed and held open the door for them. "Ivar's. Best chowder anywhere. Now get out, you old son of a bitch, and don't leave town without letting me know! We'll have dinner. Jumie! Get me Kewaunee, and we'll talk about his fucking Bigfeet!"

**

"What was that all about?" J. Wayne asked once they were back in the car.

"The deal we made?" J. Wayne nodded. "It's pretty common. There's only the four of us, we're a small group. And we're trying to do everything. So sometimes we subcontract."

"Okay, but you gave him Crisman and MJ12. And you don't even believe MJ12."

Frohike grinned ferally. "I don't, do I." 

J. Wayne thought about it. "Wild goose chase?"

"Not quite. I mean, they could come up with something, who knows. I think MJ12 is a pile of shit, but I've been wrong before. Meanwhile, I have access to his files and his staff and his contacts."

"Hmm. So what's the stuff about referring?"

Frohike shrugged. "We'll print at the same time, and each paper will have something the other one won't, and we'll tell readers where to get theirs, and they'll tell readers where to get ours. We get new subscriptions, they get new subscriptions, and everybody's happy."

"Neat," J. Wayne said, impressed. "You guys are a lot more professional than Zev."

"Gee, thanks," Frohike said ironically. "Got your cell? We need to find someone who can tell us about our clam." He recited a number from memory, and J. Wayne dialed. "Ask for Doug Brown."

Brown gave them the number of a professor at the University of Washington, and promised to call him and vouch for them. "Give me till four, then you can call him and set up an appointment."

"What's WUFORG stand for, anyway," J. Wayne asked when they were off the phone and moving again.

"'Washington UFO Research Group'," Frohike told him. "Jeff inherited it about ten years ago. He keeps talking about changing the name, but they're established now. You think you can handle lunch yet?"

J. Wayne grimaced. "No chowder."

Frohike laughed. "No chowder," he agreed.

**

Montana had been pleasantly uneventful, at least once out of range of bad-tempered rodents, and Byers was starting to relax again. This may have accounted for the fact that his reflexes weren't all that they could have been when a white blur streaked across the road in front of them. He slammed on the brakes, but not soon enough, and the telltale thump was followed by an unholy wailing noise, abruptly silenced.

"God!" Byers said, hitting the door lock and around the front of the van before the other two could react at all.

"What the fuck?" Langly said, sliding open the door. 

Jimmy followed him, and they stood in front of the bus, looking down at—something. As they stared, it unfolded itself from its sprawl on the ground, and stood shakily on four spindly legs. 

"Jimmy, the camera!" Byers hissed as they backed away.

The—thing—turned to face them and snarled. Byers held out his hands, palms flat, and took another several slow steps away from the thing, trying to look as non-threatening as possible. Jimmy handed him the camera. The thing pelted off into the woods as Byers snapped a single shot. He handed the camera to Langly and went back as Jimmy inspected the dent on the front of the bus. 

"It's not too bad," Jimmy said finally.

Langly, playing with the camera, sighed.

"You might as well tell me," Byers said, discouraged.

Langly shrugged. "You know the chupacabra picture that bat cam took?"

"Okay, that's it," Byers said, looking determined. "We're getting a camera with a shorter ready time. This is just stupid. At this rate, we're going to miss the once-in-a-lifetime shots of the Virgin Mary."

"Or Bigfoot."

"Stop saying that. Bigfoot is a hoax and you know it."

**

"We bought a new camera," Byers told Frohike in their usual check-in. Langly was sticking close to Byers, and Byers felt better that way. The livid bruise was still making him feel irrationally guilty. "And we put a dent in the bus, but it's running fine."

"What happened? You guys run into Bigfoot?"

"Bigfoot's a hoax," Byers said, but there wasn't much spirit in it. "I don't know what we ran into."

Frohike was puzzled. "You don't know?"

"Well, it looked like…" Byers trailed off. "I don't know, Fro. I just don't know."

Langly tried. "It had a kind of human body, but it had four feet and a head kind of like a goat, and it had white fur, but it had scales…"

"Byers?" Frohike said in disbelief. "What the fuck is he talking about?"

Byers shrugged, still run-down from the encounter. "That's pretty much what it was, Mel. I don't know. Jimmy saw it too."

"Scales? Another frog thing?"

"No…" Byers closed his eyes and tried to see the thing. It was disturbingly vivid in his mind's eye. "Like a fish. It had a fish tail."

"And feet?"

Byers shrugged again. "And a goat head."

There was a very long silence. Then Frohike said, "Are you guys _drunk_?"

"Of course not," Byers said. 

"Not yet, anyway," Langly told him. "This… fishy man-goat thing just ran across the road in front of us. We hit it, but I don't think we hurt it. It ran away," he concluded helplessly.

It was Frohike's turn to sigh. "I'd be mad about the van, but it's been one of those days here, too. We got out to the site, and there was… a gooey thing. A couple of them. And a geoduck."

"A gooey duck?" Byers didn't sound as curious as he might normally have. "Oil spill?"

"A geoduck is a kind of clam." He spelled it out for them. "No, I don't know why it's pronounced that way." He described it for them in excruciating detail. "Wait till you see it. It's in my bathtub."

"That's nice," Byers said.

Frohike waited. "Are you going to ask why?"

"Mel, after the week we've had, I don't care if you're _sleeping_ with the thing."

Langly snorted. "Mulder might care."

"Yeah, I meant to ask you about that."

"I suppose if you let him sleep with it too…" Byers began.

"Byers, that kid's a bad influence on you, you know that?"

"It's been mentioned a couple of times. What did you want to ask us?"

"I'm thinking maybe we should see if he'll come out."

"J. Wayne say no?" Langly smirked.

"Screw you, Langly. Look, a couple of the things we found on the beach… I think they might be something Mulder needs to know about."

"The clams?" Now it was Byers' turn to be confused.

"No… Look. We have a couple of things in a storage locker that seem pretty damned unusual. I don't want to get into a lot of details here on the phone, but they might not be, well, indigenous."

They thought about that. Finally Byers said, "You don't mean to the area, do you."

"Not really, no." They could hear Frohike shrug. "We're in over our heads here, boys. We could sure use his resources."

Langly glanced at Byers. "Okay," he said, then he snickered. "But I'm not sharing a room with him. The man's a pervert."

Byers smiled. "Plus he squeezes the toothpaste from the wrong end."

Langly glared. "How do you know that?"

"I know everything. It's my job."

"I don't want to know why that's your job, Byers," Frohike said.

Byers shrugged. "The last time he disappeared, remember? I searched his bathroom and bedroom."

Langly looked relieved. "Oh, okay."

"We already booked the rooms, anyhow," Frohike told them. "You two are together, and J. Wayne and Jimmy will share one." There was a slight hesitation. "It was J. Wayne's idea," Frohike explained.

Langly shrugged again. "So who gets to room with the clam?"

"I'm hoping to be rid of it tomorrow, actually. We've got an appointment with a professor at the university. I'm supposed to keep it alive so he can cut it up."

"You can't do that," Langly complained.

"Why the hell not?" Frohike demanded.

Langly snickered. "Clams have feelings too."

Byers tried not to laugh. "Actually, they don't have central nervousness."

Langly cracked up. "I'm gonna marry this man," he managed between giggles.

Frohike sighed and addressed his next remarks to Byers. "You're _sure_ he's not drunk?"

Byers shook his head. "It's been a weird day, Fro."

"Tell me about it. What's so funny?"

"It's just a song. Don't worry about it."

**

"Hey, Mulder, how's it going?"

"Busy," came the short reply. "You wouldn't happen to know how to butcher an emu, would you?"

Frohike considered that from all angles. "Are you cooking again, Mulder?" he asked suspiciously. "Or did someone give you a new pet."

"Neither. Are you back in town?"

"Nope. We just went out to the site today. It's gonna be a long one, I think."

"Damn. I was really hoping for this weekend. Wanna have phone sex?"

"Not in front of the emu, no."

Mulder laughed, and Frohike experienced the usual temptation to get to the man in any way possible and fuck him senseless. "So why're you calling?"

"Moonlighting for the SPCA. Anything important going on for a while?"

"Apparently I'm not getting laid this weekend. Besides the emu, no, not really. An illegal crematorium frame-up."

"Frame-up?"

He could hear Mulder shrug. "Someone's trying to put a nightclub out of business."

"And you're involved why?"

"One of the bodies didn't stay dead."

"That must have made Scully happy."

"She's taken a few days off."

Frohike laughed. "If she wasn't so luscious, I'd have to call her a wimp."

"Well, it wasn't just that the body didn't stay dead. It got a little complicated after that."

"More complicated than bodies that don't stay dead?"

"That's kind of where the emu comes in."

"I don't want to know. I just don't want to know."

"Have it your way. There's also an alchemy scam going on."

"I thought alchemy _was_ a scam."

"Uh, yeah. Well, I don't have the details yet, so I don't actually know it's a scam. But it's one of those assumptions I make when people tell me they're making water into gold."

"Seems like a conservative enough strategy."

"Yeah. So are you hoping I'll come out so we can play fuckbunnies, or is there something serious actually going on."

Frohike chuckled. "Little of both."

"I gather you and J. Wayne are not compatible, then?"

"Well, I don't really have any reason to assume that he doesn't have all the required parts, but I guess I don't know for sure. I'm kind of assuming he has a standard assortment of tabs and slots. So you could conceivably take a little time off?"

"I don't know if Krycek would feed the emu."

"I'm just going to pretend you didn't say that."

"Have at it. The truth is, I do have a case…"

Frohike waited. "Stop running up my phone bill and just tell me already."

"I don't believe for one second that you pay a phone bill."

"I do now. Byers insisted. Are you gonna tell me about this case or should I go see just how compatible J. Wayne is?"

"Possessed appliance."

"I'll tell him you said hi."

"A man in Vermont reports poltergeist activity in his microwave."

Frohike gave that some thought. "What kind?" he asked finally.

"GE, apparently."

"Shit, Mulder, don't tell me you tried that one on Skinner."

"Are you implying he lacks a sense of humor?"

"I wouldn't imply anything of the kind, considering he's just as likely to be tapping your phone as anyone else."

Mulder was silent. "You think so?" he asked, in a kind of horrified curiosity.

"What the fuck do I know, Mulder. I'm just a professional paranoid. You're the guy who belongs to the organization with all the rules about wiretaps."

"Why doesn't that comfort me any."

"J. Edgar Hoover ring any bells for you?"

"That's probably why, yeah. As it happens, I did use that line on Skinner. He probably would have laughed hysterically if he didn't feel he had to preserve the sober FBI image."

"I'm sure that's it."

"Are you humoring me?"

"Well, at least you're paying attention."

"If you're humoring me, let's have phone sex."

"You've got your heart set on that, don't you."

"It's not my _heart_ …"

Frohike sighed. "Clinical insanity. There's nothing like it."

He could hear Mulder shrug, see the brilliant smile. "I'll let you know after I talk to my microwave guy."

"Skinner really approved that?"

Mulder laughed, and Frohike realized he'd been had. "Sure. So what's going on out there, if you didn't call to have phone sex?"

"Rein in your libido, Fed-Boy. At least for ten minutes or so."

"Hot damn."

Frohike narrated events while Mulder made a variety of horrified and disgusted noises. When he was done, Mulder was still thinking it over. Eventually he said, "What do the boys think?"

"They're still in Montana. They've been making sure to be off the road before dark since they spotted Jimmy Hoffa driving a Wal-Mart truck in Wisconsin."

Mulder sputtered something incoherent.

"I just know what they told me," Frohike said, defensive. "They also saw the Loveland Frog, the Wisconsin Blue Thing, and a lake monster. And today they ran into a fishy man-goat."

Mulder was silent for a very long moment. "Is Langly _driving_ stoned?"

"Of course not." Frohike thought about it. "I'm sure Byers wouldn't let him. Anyhow, it's Byers tellin' me this stuff."

"Byers?"

"Yeah."

"Tall guy? Beard? Wears a suit?"

"Yeah, that one."

There was an even longer moment. Then Mulder said, very seriously, "Listen, Mel, if he needs some help, I think we can get Scully to prescribe some kind of antipsychotic for him. Some of the newer ones have much milder side effects…"

Frohike sighed again. "I'm reasonably certain he's not crazy, Mulder. Have you been ignoring your mail again?"

"Ever since that bastard Ed McMahon lied to me…"

"Look, just aside from whatever the fuck we've got in storage, there's been sightings of lake monsters across the nation. Crop circles in several of the Midwestern states, over a hundred reported sightings of UFOs in Washington State alone, mutes across the Northern states and some of the Southwest. Dozens of MIB reports. Bigfoot seems to be turning up everywhere but the fuckin' talk shows, Mulder, and I've got something that looks like it came from _Tremors_ in my bathtub. I'm not ready to rule out the Loveland Frog and some blue thing."

"Bigfoot's a hoax," Mulder said, a little distracted. "What's in your bathtub?"

"Geoduck clam."

"And why?"

"I didn't want to leave it in the car."

"As good a reason as any, I suppose. The Loveland Frog. Remind me. Ohio? Reptilian humanoids?"

"That's the one. Byers had me check out the Juminda incident."

"UFO sighting. Reptilian humanoid. You find any real connection besides just the Frogboy angle?"

"Not really. The Juminda Frogboy, as you say, tends to be described as bigger, with a tail."

"Loveland?"

"No tail. Plus, it apparently is self-employed."

Another long silent moment. "Doing?"

Frohike explained. Finally, he said, "Mulder? Still there?"

"Yeah."

"And?"

"Just waiting for you to tell me it's a joke."

"I wish."

"So you want me to come out and be an expert witness at commitment hearings?"

"I just thought you might want to come see what's going on out here. We could have a pizza, microbrew, sex. This thing's turning into a huge X-File."

"Back up a second. What was that third thing you mentioned?"

"So much for the Master of Memory."

"So you want me to go to Skinner--a man who has chewed my ass raw on countless occasions, if I may remind you—and ask him if I can go get laid in the Rainy City?"

"You can if you want, but I think you might get farther if you don't emphasize that part. Come on, Mulder. We both know you've gotten flimsier excuses by that man."

"I hope you're not implying I would squander taxpayer dollars."

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to imply that."

"Damn straight."

"I meant to say that outright. Whatever happened to that Levy guy who was tracking telekinesis in chicken eggs? You went to see him, didn't you?"

"Yeah, but that rat orgasm study of his looked legit. So you want me to risk a tongue-lashing from Skinner just so I can help you guys dig up some weird story?"

"Glass houses, Mulder. And yeah. You have to admit, it has all the signs of being huge."

"Speaking of huge…"

"Pervert."

"Okay, so if I agree to do this, can we have phone sex?"

Frohike sighed heavily. "I _hate_ having phone sex with you. I always have to do all the work. It always starts out what-are-you-wearing, and it always ends up with you explaining how accordions work or where earthlights come from."

"I've explained where accordions come from?"

"Not yet, but it'll happen. I don't really think you have room to be casting aspersions on Byers' sanity, by the way."

"So do you want me to come or not?"

Frohike made a noise of total exasperation, intent on his mission. "Yes, Mulder. I want you to come."

Mulder's voice was suddenly low. "Make me, Frohike."

"You asshole." Mulder started laughing and Frohike raised his eyes to the heavens. "We're _not_ having phone sex, for God's sake. I want you to get on an airplane, one bound for Seattle, preferably after buying a ticket, though I won't insist. And keep your filthy ideas to yourself." Frohike sighed. "I can't believe you were trying to _trick_ me into having phone sex."

"I can't believe I had to try that, actually."

"I think I'm gonna need to get a lot farther from the scene on the beach this afternoon before I can have sex. And get the thing out of my bathtub. Have you ever seen a geoduck?"

"I saw a picture once."

"They don't _begin_ to do justice to the fuckers. They're _huge_. Like a horse's dick huge, Mulder. I may never have sex again."

Mulder was silent for a moment.

"You're pouting, aren't you."

"Yep. I'm heading out tomorrow."

"You're really going to Vermont?"

"Nope." Mulder was elaborately casual. "Turns out there's a huge X-File in Washington State. In the Seattle area, actually. Skinner approved the 302 today."

It was Frohike's turn to be silent. "You total asshole," he said eventually.

Mulder's voice was wounded. "I thought you'd be pleased."

"You total asshole. I swear to God, if it wasn't a federal crime to kill an FBI agent… You couldn't have just _said_ that?"

Mulder sniffed. "You were busy impugning my prowess and professional approach to entirely legitimate expenses."

"You do _know_ you're a total asshole, right?"

"It's been mentioned. What blue thing?"

"Huh?"

"The blue thing you said you weren't going to rule out. More Smurf deaths?"

Frohike thought back. "Oh, that. No, the Wisconsin Blue Thing."

"Okay. And?"

"You can't tell me you don't have a file on it somewhere in that rathole of an office."

"Assume I don't."

Frohike sighed and explained what Byers had told him, plus what little he'd gleaned from their own file. Mulder didn't seem impressed. Not by that, anyhow. 

"Probably just smoke. The Pattersons, really?"

Frohike sighed. "I think we're going to end up with an impromptu convention out here, if you want the truth."

"Then aren't you glad I'm coming."

"It wouldn't be a party without you, Spooky. You can spend some time with Drose, and I'll show the lovely Agent Scully the sights. You think she'd like to get a look at the Space Needle?"

"Is that what you're calling it now. Fight it down, Fro. I told you, she's taking some time off. Besides, I thought you said you were never having sex again."

"Women are different. Just wait till I show you this fucking clam."

"Is that a come-on?"

"No. Everything about this thing is obscene, but there's nothing _sexy_ about it."

Mulder laughed. "That's pretty much what Scully says about you."

"Low blow."

Mulder lowered his voice again, soft and throaty. "She doesn't know what she's missing, though."

"Well, if you'd—"

Mulder kept going, undeterred. "The things you can do with your hands—your mouth—God, Fro. You're so good."

Frohike gave in. "Apparently, we're having phone sex."

"I'd rather have actual sex, but we can do that tomorrow. In the meantime, I'm just _imagining_ how your hands feel on me."

"Imagining, my ass. I know damned well whose hands are on you right now."

Mulder laughed softly. "I'm imagining your ass, too, yeah. You've got one of the all-time great asses."

"Based on your extensive experience," Frohike said dryly.

"There's been some fieldwork, yes."

"J. Wayne has a nice one," Frohike said thoughtfully. "Not that yours is bad," he clarified. "Yours is very nice."

"Very _nice_?"

"Are you pouting again?"

"Yes."

"You're gonna be the death of me, Mulder."

"It's just a shame you're not here. There'd probably be other things I could do with my lips."

"Other than pout?" Despite the day, despite the goo and the smell, despite the clam in the bathtub, despite _everything_ , a faint shock hissed down his spine at the image that presented itself. "You wanna suck me, Mulder?"

"Oh yeah. I wanna be on my knees in front of you, Fro. I want your hands—those _gloves_ —on my shoulders, my back, my face."

"In your hair. God, I love your hair, Mulder. So thick and silky."

"Not the only thing thick and silky," Mulder mumbled. 

Frohike ignored the cheesy line. "You're touching yourself."

"Yeah. Are you?"

"Wish you were here to do it instead."

"I will be, tomorrow. You'll be lucky if I don't drag you off to an airport bathroom and suck you till you scream."

"You'll be lucky if I don't push you against the wall and fuck you till _you_ scream, Mulder."

"Mmm—yeah. Oh, yeah. I can see that. Public places, huh? People watching—listening?"

"Turns you on, doesn't it. People listening to me pounding you. Hearing you moan."

Mulder obliged. "Oh, Christ. I can see guys, listening… You, slamming into me, me up against a door, guys listening… Thinking about what's going on. Imagining it, imagining someone getting fucked so hard he's making all these noises… I can see them taking their dicks out, stroking themselves…"

Frohike's breath was shallow, absorbed in the fantasy. "Getting themselves off, listening to us? _God_ —Wishing they could watch, too…"

"Watch, yeah…" Frohike could hear Mulder's quiet grunts of pleasure, could practically feel Mulder's hardness, smell his arousal. Mulder's voice was hoarse. "Maybe they would. Maybe they're looking in, over, whatever. Whatever it takes to watch."

"Watch me fucking you."

"Oh, _ohhh_ , yeah… Watching you ride me. Hard… Need it harder, Fro, need your hands on my hips…"

"My gloves against your hot skin…"

"And oh, God, I need it, I'm so close… Fuck, so close, all those guys listening to it. Knowing how close I am… Wishing it was them… Wishing—"

"Yeah—But it's not... It's _you_. Always you, Mulder. So hot, so beautiful... The way you move under me…"

" _Mmm_ —Trying to get more, take you deeper. Ohhh… God, I'm so close I can barely breathe. _Harder_ , Fro…"

"One hand, fingers tracing along your spine…"

Mulder groaned. "Your hands, Jesus. I love your hands, I _need_ your hands… Digging into me hard enough to leave bruises…"

Frohike panted. "Faster, it's gotta be faster, you're so tight around me… So hot…"

"And your tongue, Fro, your mouth… My back, my sides… Wet… hot…"

"…Eyes closed, you're sweating—your skin's salty, perfect, and you're shoving against me, forcing me deeper…"

"…Making me moan…"

"…And I'm so close… and you're so close… those noises you make… that look on your face— _your_ mouth, Mulder, _yours_ … So beautiful—"

"Oh, God!"

Frohike heard Mulder come, heard him gasping for breath, heard the half-sobbing moan, heard the high, soft noise deep in his throat, the one Mulder always made when he came hard. He stroked his own weeping, throbbing cock, his grasp on himself tight and fast, feeling his balls tighten, and then he was coming, too.

It was a few minutes before either of them could speak. Predictably, it was Mulder who recovered first. "I think the emu really enjoyed that."

Frohike took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I don't want to hear about it."

"Hey, I stayed on-topic this time, did you notice?"

"I _did_ notice, and I am eternally in your debt. I'm also wondering if you're sick or something. Were you replaced by one of those shape-changing alien guys?"

Mulder snickered. "If I could change my shape, I wouldn't look like this."

"Mulder?"

"Yeah?"

"You're looking down, aren't you."

Mulder laughed. "I was, yeah."

Frohike chuckled easily in the afterglow. "Don't change a thing, baby."

Mulder snorted. "I'm gonna have to change this shirt, anyway."

"Liar."

"Huh?"

"I know you, Mulder. You started taking off clothes the second you heard my voice."

"That's all you know. I took all my clothes off when I saw the Caller ID flash your number."

"Okay. It's definitely you."

"No pod people here."

Frohike gathered his scattered wits. "When's your flight get in?"

"Ummm… Oh, yeah. Seven-seventeen. PM. United."

"Seven-seventeen. That seems pretty optimistic, doesn't it. Let's say seven-thirty, then."

Mulder laughed. "That still seems pretty optimistic. Bring the kid, would you?"

"Sure. We'll have a late dinner."

"We can go to Ivar's—"

"Shut up, Mulder."

"Listen, can you book me a room where you're staying? The usual places are full already."

"Done and done. J. Wayne already handled it. You know the damned kid's rich?"

" _And_ young and cute."

"With a nice ass."

Mulder snickered. "Yeah, but I have a _great_ ass. How rich are we talking, here?"

"Beats me. I didn't ask. But he's got enough money to make things work. Pretty impressive."

Mulder thought about it. "Maybe I should propose to him."

"Stand in line, Mulder."

"I can share."

"I hope so, actually. We're sharing a room." Mulder was silent. Frohike sighed. "What's the matter, you don't want to share a room with me?"

Mulder made a surprised noise. "Oh. Yeah, that's fine."

Frohike snickered. "You thought I meant me and the kid?"

"I _hoped_ you meant you, _me_ , and the kid."

"The kid's sharing a room with Jimmy."

Mulder choked. "When the fuck did _that_ happen?"

"Fight it down, Mulder. Nothing happened. They're just sharing a room, okay? Jimmy's straight and you know it."

Mulder laughed, relieved. "I should, I've been hitting on him for the past year."

"I don't see the attraction," Frohike mused.

"Have you forgotten my great ass?"

"Not you, him."

"He's big and blond. Unfortunately, he's also dumb as a post, and about as straight as one, too."

"True. If he doesn't respond to The Pout _or_ your great ass, he's gotta be straight. Or crazy. Either way."

"Alien infiltrator."

"He's not smart enough to be an alien infiltrator, Mulder."

"You ever watch _Invader Zim_?"

Frohike sighed. "Yeah, okay, whatever. I have to clean up, and me and the kid have to figure out what we're doing tomorrow. We'll see you when you get in, okay?"

"Where are we staying, anyway, if the kid's rich?"

"Motel Six. I insisted. I bet he heard me through the wall, actually."

"Oh, _God_ —" Mulder's breathing shortened again. "Fro—"

"Fight it down, Mulder. I'm not a young man anymore. You've gotta give me some time to rest."

Mulder sounded disappointed. "Tomorrow night—"

"Not in some airport bathroom, either. I'm not _completely_ sleazy."

"Yeah, I know. The Motel Six. Second home to reporters and special agents everywhere."

"Anything goes in a Motel Six, Mulder."

"Anything?"

"You might remember the increased security in our nation's fine airports," Frohike commented mildly. "You can't get a lot of that stuff on a plane anymore."

"Seattle has one of the highest per capita porn shop ratios in the country."

Frohike sighed. "You would know that."

"I'm not the one with a huge clam in my bathtub," Mulder retorted. "See you tomorrow, Fro."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Up: Caffeine, Conspiracies, and the Fortean Nature of Fishes IX: Sleepless in Sammamish: In which reinforcements arrive to help determine if our next guest OC is psychic, delusional, or just not getting enough REM, while our Lost Boys discover that there's really only one thing interesting about driving through Eastern Washington at night.


	9. Sleepless in Sammamish

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just when you thought it was safe to go back into a UFO cult…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Washington Watches" is mine. The chick with the Cube is mine. The actual usage of said item in prognostication is not. (I swear, I have a book that tells how to do it.) If it helps any at all, I made up the Brotherhood of Pragmatic Resistance. On the other hand, given the fact that the various jokes made about them are not exactly original, maybe it doesn't help that much. Rosenberg, Allen, and their cub reporter Pete come to us from "Weekend", in which they represented the entirely fictitious (as far as I know) publication _Apple Cart_. Pete's area of interest is UFO hoaxes, which will become relevant hopefully at some point. _Flap_ , which is a real name of a real UFO press, has become fictionalized in the person of Steve Helder, editor, from Arkansas. At this point I frankly regret that I used a real name of a publication, but on the other hand there are only about eight discrete organizations called _The Smoking Gun_ , so let's just all pretend this is a different _Flap_. Also, please don't throw away hotel Bibles. It makes the maid's life difficult, and the bugs are in the TV anyway.
> 
> And, okay, it's probably time to explain a popular element of UFOlogy. Frohike's experience in the first part of this segment is more or less an example of "Oz Factor". That is, the weirdness in terms of environment and perception that happens during a UFO encounter. It tends to include visual and auditory hallucinations, (or conversely a total lack of noise), strange lights, smells, and sensations, a feeling that time has stopped, that the world is frozen, and that "something is wrong". (Possibly the big shiny thing with the little gray guys inside, I suppose.) Frohike's response to this, afterwards, is also part of Oz Factor, and would be considered perfectly normal by UFOlogists.
> 
> Spoilers: There's a couple of references to XF: Unusual Suspects.

After dropping a chunk of change on the new camera, Byers had insisted the three of them share a room Thursday night. Langly was less than thrilled, until Jimmy announced that he was going to go give the van a thorough going-over after dinner. Byers had barely had time to dump the Bible into the trash can at the end of the hallway before Langly dragged him back into the room and was stripping clothes off both of them with the kind of efficiency and speed he usually reserved for a hack.

"Ri, for God's sake. Can I at least brush my teeth?"

"No time to waste," Langly had muttered into his hair. "You heard the man."

"I heard him say half an hour. I think we've got time to brush our teeth."

"I don't think half an hour's gonna be long enough for what I wanna do to you."

Byers had feigned surprise. "It only took ten minutes last time."

"Smartass."

As it turned out, Jimmy had returned with surprising tact an hour later, by which time Langly was snoring away and Byers was the sole recipient of the knowing smirks and giggles. He'd sighed and rolled over, stealing the blankets and leaving Jimmy to giggle at the flying toasters on Langly's boxers. Served him right.

**

Restless in the night, Frohike had awoken at some point, and been drawn to the window by a shimmering pale light between the curtains. He remembered peering out to see—snow. It had seemed to be snowing, in the deserted parking lot, lit by the dim streetlights. It melted as it touched the ground, and he dismissed the thought it might be, ash, maybe, or fallout, or something like that. Nothing moved but what his eyes kept telling his brain was snow, and the whole world seemed silent. There was no sound from the air conditioner he'd left on earlier, no traffic noises.

Alarmed at the eerie scene, he had backed into the table. There was no noise even from that, and he'd turned to see he'd knocked over several of the sample containers. The world had frozen into an icicle around him, and sharp at the point were the two canisters balanced in midfall. He'd reached out with a hand that didn't tremble through sheer force of will, and set them carefully upright. He'd been realizing it had to be a dream when the varnished surface of the table had shone with the reflected vibrant blue of lights from outside the window. His outstretched arm tingled where it was bathed in the light. He'd turned, not breathing, and seen… something. A roughly triangular shape outlined by circles of blue light. The lights cast rays through the snow, pooling on the pavement. And then it was gone.

He remembered noticing he had something on his hand from one of the samples, something warm and gooey and he didn't want to know what it was. He'd walked calmly to the bathroom and washed his hands and then, thirsty, drank three glasses of water. He'd glanced into the tub, it seemed, to see the clam pulsing gently, and glowing softly in shades of violet. He'd regarded it without emotion for a moment. Then he'd gone back to bed.

In the morning, everything looked normal. Just a weird dream, he told himself.

Except—Except—Except that there was a burning rash on his arm where the light had been brightest. His brain stuttered at it until something suggested he was allergic to something from the beach yesterday, and this was the reaction.

He heard J. Wayne moving around next door, and knocked on the connecting door. The kid was already up and dressed. He stared in surprise at Frohike, enrobed and probably looking the worse for wear, and focused on the rash. 

"What happened?"

Frohike shrugged. "Allergy, I guess. Mind if I use your shower? There's a clam in mine."

J. Wayne stood back, still looking curiously at the rash. "Sure. Allergy to what? Because it looks like a burn, actually."

Frohike shrugged again. "It does kind of burn. I don't know to what. Something on the beach, maybe. After I get dressed, we'll hit a drugstore, get some cream or something."

J. Wayne nodded reluctantly. "Maybe you should see a doctor. Considering what was _on_ that beach. You could have been exposed to anything, really."

Frohike snickered. "You want to go to a doctor and ask if he thinks this is a reaction to an alien slime mold?"

The kid sighed. "I guess not."

Frohike was, truth to tell, a little concerned about it himself. With what he knew about the black oil, it would have been impossible not to be worried. But there wasn't much a doctor could do about it, and he knew better than to let himself pop up on the radar like that. There were still laws about alien contact, after all, and there were people who'd use any excuse to break up "Gunman". They'd made a lot of the wrong kind of enemies, and Mulder's protection only went so far.

When the hot water hit his arm with a pain he'd previously only associated with drunken power-tool incidents, he let out a noise that could have come from a horny moose. 

J. Wayne was instantly banging on the door, panic in his voice. "Are you okay? What's wrong?"

Frohike shut off the water and stood dripping, trying to get his breath back. "I'm okay," he eventually managed. "The water was too hot."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. Don't worry about it." He turned the water back on and held his arm well out of the spray while he finished up.

**

After breakfast, Frohike took J. Wayne by the offices of "Washington Watches", another UFO research group "Gunman" worked with from time to time. 

"They're pretty much the same deal as WETHR Front," he explained. "They publish books, not news. Some articles in science journals. The guy in charge here is Walter Censoni. He's a nice guy, a little… focused. They maintain observation posts, send field investigators to sites. Not everyone does that. They also have radar and listening posts. They're pretty technologically advanced. He might be able to tell us what's been going on on Maury."

"The books must do well," J. Wayne commented.

"Not that well, no. Censoni's new money. Microsoft money."

"Okay." He seemed distracted. "When's Agent Mulder coming in?"

Frohike gave him a fast glance. "Seven, seven-thirty. We'll get dinner after that, that okay?"

"Whatever."

"You're coming with me to the airport, okay?"

J. Wayne looked surprised. "Yeah, sure, okay."

"You don't want to?"

The kid turned bright pink. "No, I just assumed, uh…"

Frohike took pity on him. "Mulder asked."

He looked pretty happy with that, Frohike thought, smothering laughter. 

"You, uh, never told me how you met Agent Mulder." The words came out in a rush.

Frohike allowed himself a grin. "Long story. We'll get Mulder drunk at dinner again, he'll tell you." He chuckled. "Most of it, anyhow. He doesn't remember… the best parts."

J. Wayne settled for raised eyebrows and a questioning expression. Frohike didn't notice, he was remembering that first time they'd met. A lot of it was kind of awful, but Mulder didn't remember those parts either, so nobody'd have to tell the kid, really. But what Frohike would die remembering, was Mulder, stark naked and sweating all over, sprawled on the concrete, yelling at the top of his lungs about aliens. Even fucked up, Mulder was totally hot, and Frohike'd lived with that image in his head for years before he'd gotten another look. Which had been well worth the wait. Finally, Frohike shook his head and chuckled again. "A very long story. It's how we got our name, too. How we got our start."

"The paper?" J. Wayne asked.

"Yep. Time for that later, okay? Let's go talk to Wacky Wally."

J. Wayne laughed a little, and Frohike grinned at him again. "Don't tell him I called him that, okay? We still need his help here."

**

Washington Watches was located in a three story glass-and-brick edifice with an array of unrecognizable equipment bristling from the roof. Inside, it simply bristled with people. Dozens of them, milling about, all with piles of papers in hand, typing, or talking on phones. All of them loud. 

From the high ceiling of the foyer hung a UFO of the type J. Wayne was coming to recognize as a Marfa Diamond. There were other, much smaller, models hanging around the offices, or perched on stands, and J. Wayne was surprised to see how few of them resembled the traditional "flying saucer". 

Frohike led him to the busy reception desk, where a harried woman put her hand over the mouthpiece of her phone and snapped at them. "Pink's First Kind, yellow's Second, blue's Third, red's Fourth, orange if you're not sure. Abductions and conversations with entities, fill out a green sheet, too. If you saw Bigfoot, just leave your name in the log and we'll get back to you." She waved at an array of colored papers. 

Frohike laughed. "I got an appointment, Censoni. 'Lone Gunman' to see him."

The woman looked annoyed for a moment and then resigned herself, turning back to the phone. "Please hold for just a moment." She spun to her computer terminal and tapped a few words. "Mel Frohike and friend?" she asked suspiciously.

"That's the one."

She sighed faintly. "Please take a seat over there. He'll be a few minutes." Then she went back to the phone. "Sorry about that. When you say trout, you mean…?"

Frohike laughed again and grabbed one of each colored paper, sitting in the arranged chairs already partially occupied with several other people, some of them busily filling out forms. He handed an orange sheet to J. Wayne and started reading over the green.

Twenty minutes later, they'd both read all the questionnaires, and listened to the woman give her curt speech seven more times between phone calls. Three people had taken one form or another, two of them leaving with them in hand, and one sitting down near a window to fill hers out. Another had signed the log and gone away looking disappointed. Two more had been put off by the welcome and gone away apparently unsatisfied. Of the last two, the woman had been directed to a desk on the second floor, and the man had been instructed to take a seat and wait.

Frohike, displaying no evident impatience, had wandered over to the in-house bulletin board, J. Wayne tagging behind, to read the notices. "They got an INWO league," Frohike said cheerfully. J. Wayne gave him a blank look, and Frohike sighed, in unconscious echo of the woman at the desk. " _Illuminati: New World Order_ ," he said. "It's one of those trading card games. It's how conspiracy geeks unwind. Those of us too old for D&D, anyhow."

"There's a D&D group too," J. Wayne observed. "And a _Magic_ league, it looks like."

Frohike nodded. "Censoni's got money, so most of these people are paid. They don't need a day job, so they have time to play. With Nerf guns, apparently," he grinned, pointing to an invitation to the Annual Non-Lethal Weaponry Armageddon.

Other notices tacked to the board offered "Psychic Housecleaning", "Feng Shui Therapy", and a variety of baby-, pet-, and house-sitters listed by religion. Frohike spent a moment wondering what "Houseplant Analysis" would accomplish. J. Wayne drew his attention to a notice for the monthly "transmitter hunt". 

"No clue," Frohike shrugged. "It was all model rockets in my day." The kid gave him a skeptical look, and he snickered. "And dinosaur chariot races," he added.

J. Wayne blinked, and looked ready to say something, when a man in a "Blame it on the Media" t-shirt tapped Frohike on the arm.

"Come on back, Mel. Walt's hiding out in his office."

"Larch, you sonofabitch," Frohike said happily, pounding the man on the shoulder. "What's Walt hiding from?"

The man rolled his eyes. "Kewaunee, among others."

Frohike laughed. "Him too, huh? WUFORG was dodging his Bigfeet yesterday."

"Bigfoots? Bigfeets?" mused the man. "He get past Jumie?"

Frohike snorted. "Does anybody?"

The guy grinned, holding the elevator door open. "Did you?"

Frohike laughed again. "Briefly. Sneaked past when she wasn't looking."

That earned him a look of utter disbelief. "Like she's ever not looking. You sweet-talked her, didn't you."

Mel smiled smugly as Larch led them into a private office nearly buried in files. "Not tellin'."

A dark curly head rose out of the stacks of papers scattered around, and Censoni, clad in blue jeans and a t-shirt that read "Microsoft: Assimilate or Die" tried to pick his way out of the mess to greet his visitors. "Not tellin' what, Mel?"

"Socked in again, Walt?" Frohike chuckled. "Your boy here wants to know what I've got on Jumie at WUFORG."

Censoni laughed. "That thing with her daughter, maybe?"

"Old news." Frohike smiled faintly. "These days I have to rely on natural charm, like everybody else."

Larch raised an eyebrow. "Her daughter? You dog, Mel."

J. Wayne could have sworn Frohike was blushing. "Nothing like that, Larch. Jumie'd take out a restraining order if it was like that. I just… helped her out a little. Years ago."

Censoni shook his head. "Sure. So who's the kid? You trade in that Bond guy?"

Frohike shrugged. "Not yet. Byers swore he'd feed and walk Jimmy every day if we let him keep him. This is J. Wayne Arthur. J. Wayne used to be with _Powder Keg_."

"Assholes," Larch said pleasantly enough. 

"Bunch of pricks," Censoni added. "Nice to meet you, Jay. Where'd you run into Mel?"

"J. Wayne," Frohike corrected him, just to see the kid wince again. "We met at a conference," he said, not elaborating. "He's working with us for a while. J. Wayne, this is Walt Censoni, and this is Larch Redlund."

Redlund squinted for a moment and then snapped his fingers. "Wayne Arthur the Third. 'Weaponized Microwave Exposure and Germ Line Repercussions on Humans'?"

Censoni looked surprised, but it was nothing to J. Wayne's blush. "Uh, yeah."

Censoni and Redlund traded a look. "You're working with Gunman now?" Censoni asked carefully.

"For the moment," J. Wayne admitted. "I'm freelancing since I left _Powder Keg_."

The two men traded another look. "You need a bunk?" Redlund asked.

J. Wayne looked slightly confused. "No, we're fine."

Redlund laughed. "I didn't mean a place to sleep," he explained, "I meant a place to work."

J. Wayne shook his head. "UFOs aren't really my field…" he started.

Censoni nodded. "That's fine. We prefer people with a grounding in hard sciences and an open mind to True Believers. Get me your resume before you leave, and maybe we can find a place for you. If not with us, we do know most of the groups in the area."

"Thank you, I'll do that."

Frohike interrupted. "So what's going on, Walt?"

Censoni managed to find a bare piece of desk to perch on. "You tell me, Mel. Gunman doesn't come to Washington for the weather."

Frohike snorted. "Yeah, but that's mostly because Langly whines."

Censoni turned to Redlund with raised eyebrows, and Redlund shrugged. "Where're your boys, Mel?" Censoni wanted to know.

Frohike shrugged again. "Montana." 

Redlund spoke up. "We've got cattle mutilation reports, from Montana. You're doing a black helicopters story?"

Frohike shook his head. "Nothing so conventional. They're looking for Bigfoot."

Censoni grimaced. "Bigfoot's a hoax. Everybody knows that, Mel."

"Which is why you're hiding from Kewaunee, right?"

"Okay, everybody but Kewaunee knows Bigfoot's a hoax."

"Actually, so far they've only found a Fishy Man-Goat. Their words," he clarified hastily, "not mine."

Censoni gave that due consideration. "Are they _driving_ drunk?" he said at length. 

Redlund snickered.

"Of course not," Frohike said virtuously. "Byers would never allow it."

Censoni shook his head. "So let me guess. You're here because you heard rumors about Men in Black and Maury Island."

Frohike nudged J. Wayne. "He's a smart guy. Exactly." He grinned some more. "You show me yours…"

Censoni laughed. "You've been hanging out with what's-his-name too long, Mel. Okay, what do you already know?"

Frohike ran down most of their information, omitting the more significant details, and highlighting the alleged connections between Fred Lee Crisman and the MIB, MJ12, Bay of Pigs, and JFK. 

Censoni listened thoughtfully. "What's John think?" he asked eventually.

J. Wayne looked puzzled, but they could discuss it later, Frohike figured. "He's intrigued. The JFK thing especially, you know him. He and Langly put together a chart…" He rummaged in his pack and came out with a smaller version of the connections Langly had come up with, together with Byers' notes on them. "This doesn't leave your hands, Walt," he said meaningfully.

Censoni nodded. "Usual deal."

Frohike hesitated a moment longer, mostly for effect, and handed the papers over. 

Redlund gave him a look. "Did you give this to WUFORG?"

"Not the chart, no. I gave them MJ12 and Bay of Pigs."

"Who else have you talked to?"

"WETHR Front."

"What'd you give them?"

"Not much. They want the MIB angle."

Redlund started to say something, but Censoni waved him into silence. "They can have it. _And_ the Bigfoot reports. I want Maury, Mel."

Frohike shook his head. "They're not gonna go for that."

They were all quiet for a while. Finally Censoni shrugged. "Okay. They can have the history. We want the present. Will Ellis agree to that?"

Frohike glanced at his watch. "Let's give him a call and see. Maybe we can get together and hash it out in person."

Censoni picked up the phone, and paused for a moment. "If we get a book put together out of this, do you think WUFORG would promote it?"

Frohike smiled. "I think we can arrange that."

"Is there a book here, Mel?" Redlund asked.

"More than one, Larch."

Censoni put the phone down again and regarded them intently. "You've got more than you're telling."

Frohike nodded. "A _lot_ more. We've got trace."

Redlund sat up abruptly and knocked over a stack of folders. He and Censoni ignored it. "Recordings?"

"For your ears only," he said firmly.

Censoni and Redlund both nodded. Frohike glanced around suspiciously. "Artifact," he said quietly. J. Wayne shifted slightly, surprised. Frohike gestured him to relax.

"You're serious," Censoni said.

"Look, Walt. Mulder's coming out. That's how serious I am. If this is anything like what I think it is, there'll be books and exclusives for every organization in this state, okay? It's huge. You know that already. We're gonna need all the help we can get. Especially with the MIB wandering around trying to bury it as fast as they can. There's room for everybody on this one."

Censoni gazed at him for a while and then nodded, picking up the phone again. 

The door swung open suddenly, and three men came in. They all wore suits, and Frohike had a brief MIB moment. 

"I hope you're right, Mel," said the first one. "'Cause everybody's going to be here."

J. Wayne stretched out a hand to the youngest of the trio. "Pete, how are you?"

Frohike tried innocence. "Allen, Josh. What brings you here?"

The first man snorted. "Give it a rest, Mel. Who're you callin', Walt?"

Censoni put the phone down again. "Locksmith. Don't you ever knock, Allen?"

Josh Rosenberg smiled. "Usually he lets me do it. Come on, men. There's no need to fight over this. Mel's right, it's huge. Plenty to go around." The smile verged on a grin for a moment. "By the way, you've got _Flap_ in your reception area."

Redlund sighed. "Swell. Let's make it a party."

**

After a loud and contentious, but ultimately mutually beneficial, two hour meeting, they headed back to the hotel to pick up what Frohike referred to as his roommate. 

"What's that noise?" J. Wayne asked curiously once the door was open.

Frohike stopped and listened. "Kind of a rustling?"

"Yeah…"

"It's coming from--Oh, no." Frohike dashed into the bathroom and groaned loudly. J. Wayne followed.

"Fuck," commented Frohike. "Fuck, fuck, fuck."

The bathtub was alive with tiny purple crabs. They were all over each other, nearly four inches deep. The sound of their shells rattling together was producing a sort of irregular hiss. The tip of the clam shell was just visible under the shifting patterns of the crabs. 

Frohike grimaced and reached in to snag it. "Damn!" He yelped and yanked his hand back, shaking off the two crabs that had applied themselves to the skin of his fingers. One landed on the tile and J. Wayne upended the empty ice bucket over it before it could flee. 

Frohike was sucking on his finger. "Rotten little bastards," he muttered. He stalked into the other room and returned with a pair of pliers. 

Once shaken free of the crabs, the shell was everything Frohike had hoped it wouldn't be: empty, picked clean, almost polished with the action of thousands of tiny claws.

He offered a rhetorical viewpoint that turned J. Wayne's face pink, and left with the clamshell in hand. He was inspecting it closely in the sunlight from the window when J. Wayne, having returned the fugitive crustacean to the tub, rejoined him. 

"Nothing," Frohike muttered disgustedly. He dropped the shell heavily onto the table and leaned back against the wall. "I suppose," he said after a while, "we should take some of the crabs with us to see our professor. Not that there's any point."

"You've got a message," J. Wayne commented, gesturing at the phone. "I'll snare a couple of your little friends. Maybe we should take a sample of the purple thing," he suggested.

Frohike shook his head. "Not a good idea. The fewer people know about that right now, the better."

"Okay. Hey," he called from the bathroom, "Why'd you tell those guys about the metal?"

"They've got equipment we're gonna need." He thought about it for a moment. "I should probably make sure the boys are keeping it somewhere safe, now we know what's in it."

J. Wayne returned, peering into a plastic canister with several crabs scuttling in the bottom of it. "You think it might be dangerous?"

Frohike shrugged. "No. I think we shot enough radiation through it to kill whatever was in it. But I'd rather not take chances." He picked up the phone and got the desk, asking for his messages. He listened for a moment. "Look, it's not like--" he protested, before being cut off. He listened a little longer, and then sighed. "Fine, yeah, okay. We'll do that."

J. Wayne waited for him to hang up, which he did with a certain lack of restraint, and then said, "What's wrong?"

"Apparently," the older man said in leaden tones, "we need to talk to the manager about a pet deposit."

**

The professor wasn't helpful, though not for lack of trying. He declared the crabs to be perfectly common _Hemigrapsus nudus_. He dissected one and concluded there was nothing abnormal about it. The clam shell had only recently been vacated, and though shore crabs didn't commonly eat geoduck, he supposed with enough of them in a confined area they'd grab at whatever was available. 

They weren't pin crabs, he responded with a certain amount of surprise to Frohike's question, but purple, or naked, shore crabs. He went on to explain that as far as he knew, the only possible way for them to have gotten into the bathtub was for someone to have put them there. He lectured at some length about the mating habits of the crabs, and Frohike found himself obliged to put his pack in his lap. Mulder was quite a social liability even when he wasn't around, Frohike reflected.

A terrible thought suddenly occurred to him, and he made their excuses quickly and herded J. Wayne back to the car.

"Mel, what's up?"

"Look, if someone filled the tub with crabs, then maybe they got to the locker, too. We need to go make sure it's safe."

The kid folded himself into the car without another word.

A speeding ticket later, the lock appeared to be unmolested. A check of the closet and its contents showed nothing different from the day before, aside from the smell, which was starting to overwhelm even the climate control in the heat of the summer. 

"This is a good place for a Stick-Up," Frohike mused as he closed the cooler chest lid. Definitely starting to feel a bit ill, he dropped the lock into place and snapped it shut. "Well, I guess that's okay. But it doesn't explain the crabs."

"Maybe whoever did it doesn't know about this. Or maybe the lock was too hard to get past."

Frohike sighed. "One thing hanging out with Yves has taught me, no lock is pickproof."

"Who's Yves?"

Frohike wasn't listening. A tall, nearly emaciated woman with extremely long, blue-black hair was approaching them. She had a limp, huge sunglasses, and a very sharp nose. She was barefoot, and wearing what Frohike could only describe as a collection of gaudy scarves and rags knotted together. It somehow didn't quite cover everything, and he watched with interest as her odd gait caused brief and unexpected revelations of dark skin. Even standing still, she jangled from dozens of pieces of copper jewelry. 

"Melvin Frohike," she said, in a high, edgy voice, pulling off her glasses to reveal seriously bloodshot eyes. "And Jay Wayne Arthur, the Third."

"Have, uh, have we met?" Frohike asked, automatically offering his hand.

She took it between both of hers and squeezed. Her hands shook slightly, Frohike noticed, and her left thumb seemed to twitch continuously. "Um, no. Not in this existence. Not until now." She let go of his hand and turned to take J. Wayne's. "I'm Sela Loy," she said. "And I've been looking for you."

Brief suspicion flared for a moment. "How did you know we were here?"

"Well, I followed my guide."

J. Wayne glanced around, seeing no one. "Your guide?" he asked hesitantly.

From somewhere in whatever she was wearing, the woman produced… The two men blinked. 

"A Rubik's Cube?" Frohike asked.

"My guide," the woman nodded quickly.

"Oh."

"I know your clam is missing," she told them.

Frohike stared. "Uh, yeah?"

"How do you know about that?" J. Wayne demanded. 

She petted the Cube anxiously with the fingertips of her free hand. "My guide told me."

"Uh, yeah." Frohike squinted at it. "Right. Your Rubik's Cube told you about our clam."

"And where to find you."

"And where to find us," he repeated. "Uh, it's telling you anything else?"

"Many things." Shifting her gaze from the men to the Cube and its apparently random patterns, she smiled anxiously at J. Wayne. It seemed to unnerve him. "This won't be everything you hope, but it will be what you want."

"Oh," he said again. "What will?"

"This." She offered a vague wave of her hand that seemed to indicate the closet, the ground, and possibly the entire solar system. Then she turned to Frohike. "And for you, um, barnacles." She looked puzzled.

"Excuse me?"

"Barnacles," she nodded again. She forced the Cube into his hands. "Twist it six times. Don't look at it."

Still baffled, he did as he was told. She took it back and pondered it for a moment, shifting it from side to side and regarding it from various angles. "Ice," she said at last. "Or snow."

"What?" Frohike was startled.

"Or ice cream. I can't be sure. But, yes, barnacles, definitely."

Frohike sighed. "Whatever. Look, Ms. Loy, we're really pretty busy today. We haven't got time for a toy-assisted psychic, okay?"

Her eyelids jumped a bit as she put her sunglasses back. "I understand. I'll be in touch." She pulled a card from--again, somewhere--and handed it to him. Then she turned and walked away, displaying even more glimpses of skin. 

Finally, Frohike sighed again and turned to J. Wayne. "I hate this state, you know that? As far as I can tell, there're only about a dozen sane people in the entire goddamned place."

J. Wayne laughed. "I think I'm ready for lunch."

**

Over lunch (not chowder) Frohike pulled out his cell and made a call to Tim Ellis. 

"Do you, or does Dottie," he grimaced at J. Wayne across his sandwich, "know someone named Sela Loy?"

J. Wayne stole one of Frohike's french fries as he listened. Evidently, Tim did. 

"You can't be serious," Frohike started, only to be interrupted. He listened a while longer, occasionally interjecting exclamations of disbelief, and hung up, sighing. He stared at his fries for several moments without saying anything.

"So what's he say?" J. Wayne asked.

Frohike reached across and grabbed the younger man's dill pickle wedge. J. Wayne grinned and swiped another fry. "Maybe we should order for each other next time," Frohike commented.

J. Wayne laughed. "I'm not getting anywhere near your roast beef. So what's he say?"

"That's a shame. It seems Ms. Loy is a member of a group known in these parts as The Brotherhood of Pragmatic Resistance."

The kid raised an eyebrow. "Resistance to what?"

Frohike closed his eyes. "Alien abduction."

J. Wayne thought about that for a moment. "What's pragmatic resistance?"

Frohike slumped and dropped one hand heavily onto the table. "You don't want to know."

"Why, is it illegal?"

"Who knows? It starts with guns. They seem to be the best-armed bunch of insomniac nutcases in the state."

"That makes me feel safe."

"This'll help, then. It seems the head nutcase is a guy who calls himself Brother Bill the Righteous."

"Brother Bill?"

"Brother Bill the Righteous," Frohike confirmed. "That's not even the worst part. Apparently, pragmatic resistance involves more than just weapons and caffeine addiction. Brother Bill claims to have been targeted for abduction by, I dunno, nocturnal sex-crazed aliens who want his sperm. So to thwart them--"

"He got a vasectomy?"

"Brother Bill is apparently not one for half measures," Frohike told him, eyes closed.

J. Wayne swallowed nervously. "Does that mean--"

"Let's just say he's got an ironclad defense in any paternity suits."

J. Wayne winced and pushed his plate away. "You're right. I didn't want to know." He thought about it for a moment. "And Ms. Loy?"

"Tim says their habit is to name you for the first thing you see when you are 're-baptized'. So aside from Brother Bill, there's also Brother Table, Sister Drinking Glass, Brother Window, that sort of thing."

"And Ms. Loy?" J. Wayne persisted.

"Sister Brother Table."

They both contemplated that. Finally J. Wayne said, "Well, I can see why she goes by Sela Loy."

"On the bright side, not all of them have gone as far in the pragmatic resistance thing as Brother Bill. Many of them can still, for example, count to eleven."

J. Wayne snickered.

"Tim says," Frohike commented eventually, "that Ms. Loy is a nutcase, but does seem to be legitimately psychic."

"That's a shame," J. Wayne said mildly.

"What is?"

"He seemed reasonably intelligent."

Frohike just laughed.

**

Idaho was soothingly uneventful on jangled nerves. On the other hand, they were only in the state for three hours. Afternoon in Eastern Washington was turning out to be a blissful monotony of wheat fields, cows, parched grass, and dust, broken only occasionally by the glimpse of a boulder or a tree sitting in the middle of a field or pasture. 

Even Langly was learning to live with the cows. He'd appropriated the radio while Byers was driving, declaring the airwaves to be "communal property" and therefore his by right of domestic partnership. His enthusiasm had dimmed upon discovering that the majority of the available stations were broadcasting religious material and farm reports. 

He'd skipped lunch and rigged the van's radio to play from his CDs, despite Byers' predictions that Frohike wasn't going to take that well. Langly shot him a look that could've singed gnats, and he shut up and concentrated on driving. 

Things went okay until about three, when they found the road blocked by a black stretch limo with darkened windows. Byers pulled the van to a stop and gazed at Langly in puzzlement. "Car troubles?" he mused.

Langly shook his head. "I don't know what the hell a limo would be doing out here in the desert."

Jimmy leaned forward. "Guys, there's somebody in there. Maybe we should go see if they need help or something."

Byers unbuckled himself. "Or at least push it off the road."

As they walked up to the front of the car, it became apparent that there were a _lot_ of somebodies in there, though no one seemed to have noticed the Gunmen. Byers rapped politely on the driver's side window and waited.

"Freaky," Langly muttered. "I can't figure out what they're doin' in there."

"There's enough of them," Jimmy said in confusion, "they should've been able to move the car off the road themselves, right?"

"Unless they were too busy," Langly snickered.

Jimmy's eyes widened. "There's a _lot_ of people in there, Langly. Are you sayin' they're--"

Byers hushed them both before Jimmy could complete his thought. The door opened, and the three of them stood back. A heavy middle aged guy in a rubber Ronald Reagan Halloween mask stepped out of the car, and the Gunmen stepped back even farther. The limo seemed to be packed with guys in Ronald Reagan masks and fuzzy Pikachu bedroom slippers.

The masks added a surreal uniformity to the occupants, but the Gunmen found themselves in a very good position to identify the wearers as male anyway--the masks and the slippers were all they wore.

"Oh, my," Byers said faintly as Jimmy and Langly fought down giggles. "You, uh…"

"Thank God you came," said the man, his voice slightly muffled by the mask.

Byers tried to come up with a logical reply. "Uh, car trouble?" he ventured helplessly. Langly came close to choking, and Jimmy had to pound him on the back.

A second mask leaned out of the car. "UFOs stole our clothes!" he wailed.

"You, uh," Byers smiled painfully. "No kidding," he said finally.

The first man tried to shake Byers' hand, a move he prevented by turning away to gaze at the car's skew across the road. "So what, uh, happened out here?"

"Do you have jumper cables?" a third masked man asked Langly.

"Why?" Langly demanded suspiciously. "What are you going to do with them?"

Byers did what he could to suppress the sudden image. "Yes, we do. Let me get them. We'll bring the van closer."

**

As soon as they picked up Mulder, Frohike drove them to the storage locker. Ever obsessive, Mulder had insisted. 

"Hold your nose," Frohike advised. "I hate to think what it's going to smell like today."

Mulder and J. Wayne prudently stepped back. Frohike pulled the lock off the hinge and the door exploded outwards as the contents of the closet pressured it open and poured out. Frohike was left standing in the middle of an improbably large pile of multicolored ping pong balls. 

_Tok… tok... tok…_ The last few bounced away and finally rolled to a stop.

Frohike stood blinking, too shocked to move, at the inside of the closet, still half-filled with the balls.

"What the fuck…?" Mulder said faintly. 

J. Wayne bent over and picked up a yellow ball, regarding it intently. 

"Boys?" Mulder said. "Tell me you ran out of Styrofoam peanuts and this is what you went with."

Frohike sighed as they started to dig him out. "We weren't _mailing_ it, Mulder. Someone else did this."

"That's what I was afraid of." Mulder began scrounging hopelessly through the three feet of balls still left in the closet as Frohike and J. Wayne watched in depression.

"Give it up, Mulder, they're not in there."

Mulder thumped into the middle of the pile, the popping noises of balls bursting under his weight. He sniffed. "They didn't leave it here long, either. This whole place smells like… gardenias?"

"Gardenias?" Frohike leaned in and sniffed the air. "Weirdness." 

"Well, it certainly doesn't smell like the goo did," J. Wayne commented.

"I assumed not, no," Mulder said, reaching out an arm. J. Wayne helped him up. 

Frohike shook his head. "The stuff was here this morning, Mulder. And this place just reeked."

"Wow, those Ionic Breeze things are great, then," Mulder commented, feigning awe. "Let's see if we can…"

"Garbage bags, in the trunk," Frohike told him. "I'll get them." He wandered back, shaking his head.

J. Wayne and Mulder stared helplessly at each other. 

"Is it always this weird around these guys?" the kid finally asked.

Mulder shook his head. "Of course not." J. Wayne looked relieved, and Mulder pulled the rug out. "It's usually a lot weirder. Especially if Yves is involved."

"Who's Yves?"

Frohike returned with the box of garbage bags and some latex gloves. "There's no point, Mulder, but what the hell."

They put on the gloves and started scooping the balls into the bags, careful not to miss any. As predicted, the storage closet was devoid of goo, alien or terrestrial. 

J. Wayne sighed. "At least we still have the samples and the pictures. What are we saving the balls for, anyway?"

Frohike glanced at Mulder. "You answer this one. You can practice your explanation for Skinner when he starts screaming."

"Who's Skinner?"

"My boss," Mulder sighed. "A man with a very subdued sense of humor. He's not going to like it when I ship thousands of ping pong balls back and ask the lab to fingerprint them."

Frohike snorted. "That's an understatement."

J. Wayne thought about it. "They should be able to fume them with cyanoacrylate. It ought to be faster than printing each one. I mean, they're ping pong balls. You're not going to need VMD."

Mulder shrugged. "I just hope I get a chance to explain that before Skinner fires me." He grinned at Frohike. "Gonna need your prints for comparison, J. Wayne."

Frohike snickered. "Ink and powder, Mulder. Kinky."

Mulder kept grinning. "Hey, you brought the prophylactics," he replied, waving a gloved hand at them.

Frohike's own grin grew. "That's not all I brought. Once you get your prints, I've got the UV powder and a black light."

"Always the Boy Scout," Mulder laughed. "Always prepared."

J. Wayne just stared at them.

**

They dropped off Mulder's stuff and the ping pong balls at the hotel. Frohike was relieved to discover the crabs hadn't increased or escaped in the interim, and the look on Mulder's face was priceless. The agent was rendered totally speechless. Frohike wished he'd had a camera ready. He explained briefly.

"Maybe we should fingerprint those, too," Mulder said at last. He blinked and shook his head. "I gather we're showering with the kid? Or is he the one who gave you the crabs in the first place."

Frohike snorted and went to check his messages. He listened briefly to the desk manager and turned around to gaze at Mulder, who was examining the specimen containers. He raised an eyebrow at the agent. 

Mulder noticed and made a face. "Stop that. I get enough of that from Scully."

Frohike put the phone down. "Who knows where you're staying?"

Mulder shrugged. "Who'd you tell? I didn't even know where we were staying, exactly. Why?" he added, as an afterthought.

"Somebody left an envelope for you at the desk. And I didn't tell anybody."

Mulder shrugged again. "Maybe J. Wayne did."

Frohike shook his head. "I don't know why he would have. Hey, do you know about something called the Brotherhood of Pragmatic Resistance?"

"No. Should I? Resistance to what?"

"Alien abduction. Where do you want to eat?"

Mulder considered both statements with equal intensity. "I dunno. They tried to feed me on the plane, so anything would probably be a step up from that. How do they resist alien abduction? Become UFOlogy authors?"

"Nothing so conventional. It's actually not the abduction per se that they're resisting. The head nutbar seems convinced that the aliens visit him at night to steal his sperm."

Mulder made a face. "He got a vasectomy?"

"He seems to have gone a little overboard, actually."

Mulder winced. "You're not telling me--"

"That he doesn't play piano standing up anymore?"

Mulder shook his head. "That's disgusting, even from you, Frohike."

Frohike snickered. "Yeah, but you knew what I meant."

"There was this fratboy in my misspent youth…"

"I never pictured you as a fratslut, Mulder," Frohike commented dryly. "But yeah, that's what I'm telling you about Brother Bill the Righteous."

"Brother Bill…"

"The Righteous."

"Okay, but does it work?"

"Apparently not. He's got a group of well-armed nutcases in a compound in Sammamish."

"That's very reassuring. Where's Sammamish?"

"I don't know, exactly, but I understand they have a big fish festival every year."

Mulder sighed. "I think they put something in the coffee."

**

The envelope at the desk was anonymous enough, but questioning of the desk clerk who'd taken it revealed that it probably wasn't Ms. Loy or any of her fellow jittery insomniacs who'd left it. They gathered J. Wayne and piled into the rental again to find dinner. Mulder opened the envelope and took a look through what initially appeared to be a dozen photos of unusual UFOs. Not the standard saucer shapes, and not even the deltas they kept running into reports of out here. Mulder's initial excitement faded almost instantly. He tilted the photos slightly so Frohike could see them. 

Frohike gave them a two-second glance, snorted, and looked back to the stoplight, a cynical smile on his face. "Someone's fond of you, Mulder."

Mulder sighed and handed the photos back to J. Wayne.

The kid looked through them, silent for a moment. "I don't--" he started, and then stopped. "Well, that's weird."

Mulder slumped. "I get this kind of thing all the time," he said to no one in particular.

Frohike just laughed.

**

"Private party, boys?" Allen pulled out a chair and sat down next to Mulder. "What are you doing in town?"

"Starting a grunge band. How are you, Allen," Mulder said without enthusiasm. 

J. Wayne gave in to the inevitable and made room for Rosenberg and Dodden. 

"It takes a really big deal to get the FBI out," Rosenberg noted. "What aren't you telling us, Mel?"

"Me? Keep things from my pals at _Apple Cart_?" Frohike feigned surprise.

Allen heaved a sigh. "What's it gonna take to get it out of you?"

A cruel notion hit Frohike abruptly. He caught Mulder's eye for a split second and grinned slyly. "Why would you think we were hiding anything?"

Rosenberg glanced at each of the three men, suddenly thoughtful. "You and Walt have something on the side," he speculated. 

Frohike went for offended. "We told you everything we knew."

Allen sat up as if he'd been jabbed. "Everything you _knew_?" he asked, repeating the subtle emphasis.

Mulder turned away very deliberately, acting disappointed. 

Frohike looked crestfallen, and tried to bluff through it. "Yeah. Everything." He didn't--quite--meet Allen's eyes. 

J. Wayne started to say something and found Frohike's hand on his leg under the table. He shut his mouth in a hurry. 

"You're looking shifty, Mel," Allen commented. "Spill."

Rosenberg gave Mulder a fast look. "Let's not get personal. We're all friends, remember."

Frohike experienced a quick stab of remorse, but it passed. They were press, after all. "Well, if we _did_ find something," he said nastily, "that 'shifty' crack would cost you big, Chuck."

"Ah-hah!" Allen crowed.

Mulder sighed and leaned close to Frohike. "You have to stop letting these guys bait you," he hissed.

Rosenberg looked from one to the other. "What do you want for it, Mel?"

Frohike tried sheepish. "I don't--"

"Okay, Mel. Let's talk trade. What do you want?"

Frohike sighed and let his shoulders slump, to all appearances defeated. "A stiff drink."

Allen grinned. "Deal."

Mulder snorted, and Rosenberg smiled. "We'll just get the check. Now, what is it?"

Frohike and Mulder glared at each other for a moment, evidently oblivious to the rest of the world. Mulder shrugged at him. "You spilled it, you go get it."

Frohike sighed and stood. "J. Wayne, if he gets his parsley anywhere near my plate, I expect you to spit in his drink."

J. Wayne blinked while Mulder and Allen snickered.

Rosenberg smiled gently at the two cubs. "The only people stranger than reporters are the FBI," he explained. "They've been tossing parsley at each other over dinner for years."

Dodden and J. Wayne didn't seem particularly enlightened. 

"We can explain it to you," Allen smirked, "but we can't understand it for you. Go on, Mel, I'm keeping an eye on him."

**

Twenty minutes later, the three reporters stared at their new prizes.

"Checkers," Dodden said eventually, sighing.

"You what?" Allen yelped.

"Checkers and marbles. You know, the toys?"

Rosenberg looked more carefully at his picture. "I hate to say it, but he's right."

"They've been painted silvery-gray. And photographed from a very controlled angle. Sorry."

"Well," Rosenberg began.

"Don't say it," Allen begged.

"Someone's playing games with us."

Allen smacked his forehead. "I'm putting in for a transfer. Maybe they need another guy in cold fusion."

"They must have known," Rosenberg said thoughtfully.

Allen pitched the envelope into the back seat, narrowly missing Dodden, and started the car. "Mel's gonna pay."

**

"And I guess it's a good thing Ringo packed so many extra clothes, because we ended up giving most of it to them. He's not happy about it, and I owe him a bunch of new shirts." Byers paused. "Fro? Still there?"

Frohike nodded, still speechless, and realized Byers couldn't see it. He cleared his throat. "Twenty-seven naked guys," he said, hoping Byers would correct him. He didn't, and Mulder stopped looking at the sample containers and stared. 

"In Ronald Reagan masks," Byers confirmed unhappily.

"In Ronald Reagan masks," Frohike repeated for Mulder's benefit. "And Pokemon slippers."

"Pikachu, I believe. When they drove away, they were all singing that Jigglypuff song."

"Okay, that's it. Jimmy's not watching cartoons anymore. The only thing more pathetic than you knowing the Jigglypuff song, Byers, is me knowing what you're talking about."

Byers almost chuckled. "Believe me, twenty-seven naked men singing it is worse than either of those. We collected several drawings of the alleged craft and occupants. Jimmy and Langly have spent the better part of the last few hours speculating on why there were twenty-seven guys in slippers and masks in a limo in the middle of nowhere to begin with."

Frohike gave it a moment's horrified thought. "What'd they come up with?"

"I had my earplugs in, but I think they decided it was probably someone testing hallucinogenic substances on the population again."

"Surprise, surprise. Maybe it was a cult. We ran into one of those today."

"A naked Ronald Reagan cult?"

"Something called The Brotherhood of Pragmatic Resistance."

"What are they resisting?"

"UFO abduction."

"I wonder if they know the ones we ran into."

"You'd have known. The Brotherhood is less worried about having its clothes stolen than its sperm."

"There is some mention, in the literature, about missing or disarranged clothing. And, at the risk of belaboring the obvious, the ones we ran into were all men."

"It's the pragmatic resistance thing. These aren't your guys. Trust me, you'd have known."

Byers listened to Mulder's hysterical laughter in the background and a terrible suspicion dawned. "You're not saying--"

"That they're not going to be in any _good_ porn movies, no."

"Dear Lord," Byers breathed. "That's…"

"Yeah," Frohike agreed. "Shut up, Mulder," he added as an afterthought.

"What's Mulder think about the samples?"

Frohike sighed. "They're gone, Byers."

"Gone?"

"Yeah. We got back here to pick up the clam, and it'd been eaten by crabs."

"Eaten by crabs," Byers repeated carefully.

"Uh, yeah. Thousands of the little bastards, in my bathtub. They ate the damned thing."

"I don't remember you mentioning crabs."

"Well, yeah. We're thinkin' someone put them in there to get rid of the clam."

"Someone's getting rid of evidence?"

"It might be our friends in the dark suits. Whoever it was also got to the stuff in storage."

"More crabs?" Byers asked incredulously.

"Ping pong balls."

Byers was silent for a while. "I didn't hear that, I don't think."

Frohike sighed and explained it, as vaguely as possible, while Mulder sat and smirked at him from across the room.

"Frohike?"

"Yeah."

"Are you _drunk_?"

Frohike heaved another sigh. "I wish. Just hang onto your piece, will you? There's something weird going on out here."

Byers was quiet long enough to alarm him. He caught Mulder's eye and jerked his head at the door. Once the agent had left, he sprawled on the bed. "What are you thinking, Byers?"

"Hmm?"

"Look, you've been acting strange since this whole thing started. What're you thinking?"

"Mel?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you still have that bad feeling about this one?"

He thought about it. "I dunno, John. It's not as bad as it was. I mean, what's going on out here is weird, but it's more frustrating than anything else. I don't like the thought of somebody going around stealing trace."

"Well," Byers said reflectively, "The fact that there's so much activity has to mean something _is_ going on."

Frohike nodded. "Yeah, I think so, too. _Flap_ and _Apple Cart_ showed up today, by the way."

"Oh? Who's there?"

"Allen and Rosenberg. Steve Helder came out himself, with a couple of his kids. We banged out some territory agreements."

"I trust you didn't give away too much."

"Do I ever?" 

Byers could hear the feral grin, and assumed everybody had gotten a royal screwing at Frohike's hands. And, knowing Frohike, had thanked him afterwards. "I'm sure J. Wayne is learning a good deal from you."

"Everything I know."

Byers did chuckle this time. "Everything?"

Frohike snorted. "Okay, not _quite_ everything. Are you guys staying put for the night?"

"We'll keep going for another hour or so. Nobody's tired, and we haven't found a decent looking hotel yet."

"When do you think you'll get here?"

"Um, noon, maybe. Barring any more weirdness."

"Okay. I still want you boys to be careful."

"We will, Mel." Byers came perilously close to smirking. "Sleep well."

Frohike sighed and disconnected. He got up and wandered over to listen at the wall he shared with J. Wayne, but didn't hear the two of them, so he assumed Mulder had gone elsewhere. Probably raiding the local convenience store for sunflower seeds, knowing Mulder. Or, and this was a scary thought, he was off checking out one of the many porn shops in the neighborhood. 

He wandered into the bathroom and stared at the crabs again. They were going to have to figure out what to do with the damned things. The rattling noise was getting on his nerves. He was still thinking about it when he heard the door open and close, followed by the sounds of a paper bag. There were none of the familiar sunflower-seed-cracking noises, so he assumed the worst. 

"Mulder, if you've gotten some kind of pop-up book again…"

Not so much as a laugh from the other room, and Frohike suddenly hoped it was Mulder, pop-up book or no, instead of, oh, any number of people who might have decided to pay him an unannounced visit, say Yves, or the Men in Black. 

He went somewhat cautiously back into the bedroom, only to be grabbed from behind and pushed face-first into the wall. 

"Hey, Fro," a soft voice chuckled at his ear, "remember last night?"

"Oh, hell yeah," he said with exaggerated enthusiasm. "The kid does this thing with his tongue, you wouldn't believe--"

Mulder manhandled him around, leaning in and down with his mouth right next to Frohike's. "Tell me more."

Frohike relaxed between the agent and the wall. "Why do we always have to talk?"

Mulder's eyes glazed slightly. "You're right. Screw the conversation. You can _show_ me."

Frohike laughed. "Okay, what'd you get me?"

"It depends."

"That doesn't sound good. What's it depend on, Mulder?"

"On what you've got for me."

Frohike sighed. "Lame."

Mulder leaned closer and tugged at Frohike's chin with his thumb. Lips millimeters apart, eyes locked. "Maybe I can make it up to you."

Frohike's smart remark was smothered under Mulder's hungry onslaught. He finally had to push Mulder away just to breathe. "Damn, Mulder--" he gasped, only to have his mouth claimed again. The urgency was almost shocking. Mel was accustomed to a meandering pursuit, an equality of wit and want. It was only when Mulder shoved him against the wall again, hard, loud, both hands up the front of his shirt, mouth fierce on Mel's own, that he realized what was driving the agent. 

Mulder broke the kiss to pull his shirt off, and Frohike put a hand on his chest, holding him slightly away until he could get enough breath to speak. 

"Mulder," he panted. "God. You gotta let me breathe now and then."

"Mel--" the plea was raw and real. Frohike dropped his hand and his objections and stretched his head back, exposing his neck to Mulder's fevered advances. He laced his fingers through the younger man's thick hair, and slid his other hand down Mulder's back to cup the firm flesh of his ass. 

For once, Mulder's assault was totally wordless, the only sounds their harsh breathing and Frohike's own moans, getting louder by the second. Mulder pinned him to the wall, hands everywhere at once. Mulder undid Frohike's buttons, pulling vest and shirt back and half off, trapping Frohike's arms behind him, leaving him helpless in Mulder's grip. Fingers grazed Mel's hard prick, and he gasped again, head hitting the wall. 

There was no way the kid could miss this, and the thought of him listening was pushing Frohike to the edge almost as fast as it seemed to be pushing Mulder. The agent's sudden streak of exhibitionism was beginning to surprise him with its intensity, and he just hoped it wasn't going to turn into one of Mulder's freaky obsessions. Frohike didn't need months of Mulder trying to talk him into, for example, sex at an ATM booth. Mulder could get some weird ideas.

"Umph!" He slammed against the wall again. Mulder was tugging at his pants, sliding down his body. "Fuck!" He yelped. "Mulder!"

The younger man yanked away abruptly, staring up. "Mel? What?"

"Careful--" he gasped, dimly aware of a thump from the other side of the wall. "Jesus." 

Mulder held him up while he tried to get himself together enough to explain. He fumbled out of his shirt, revealing a stark white handprint across the red blotch on his forearm. 

Mulder pulled him over under the light and scrutinized what at this point couldn't be mistaken for anything but a burn. 

"Listen, Mel, the next time you and the kid play together, you should remind him that I want you returned in the original condition."

"Very funny," Frohike said flatly. 

"What happened?"

"Allergic reaction to something, I guess."

Mulder shook his head. "That's a burn. What happened?"

"It's just a rash, but I got hot water on it this morning in the shower." He prodded it gently. "Maybe I'm allergic to the burn cream, too. I'll try something else tomorrow. Now do you want to talk about my arm, or do you want to have sex?"

Mulder actually seemed to be thinking it over. Frohike wasn't fooled for a second, though. "Let's have sex." Mulder gave him a sly look. "Maybe you should tie me up so I don't accidentally grab your arm again."

Frohike sighed. "You're lazy enough already, Mulder."

"I was doing okay for a while there."

"That's true. Let's give that a try again. But maybe on the bed this time."

Mulder sighed. "I suppose if you've got your heart set on it." He grinned down at Frohike. "You don't want to see what I got you?"

"Probably not." He pulled Mulder with him to the bed. "Does it rhyme in any way?"

"What kind of question is that?"

"A vital one, after the 'Amarillo' tape."

Mulder snickered. "It doesn't rhyme."

"It's not another pop-up book?"

"Nope."

Frohike sighed as he sprawled onto the bed. "Promise me it's not more novelty baking products."

"Of course not. We're a long way from 'Hot Buns'. I wasn't gone that long."

"True, but if there's another erotic bakery closer, you'd know where it was."

"I've learned not to waste 'Saucy Tarts' on you."

Mel's eyes snapped open. "Uh, Mulder?"

"Yeah?"

"Who _do_ you get them for, then?"

Mulder smirked. "Why, Frohike, are you jealous?"

Mel closed his eyes and shook his head, relaxing again. "I just had this sudden image of Scully with jelly roll filling all over her fingers." The bed started to shake, and he heard a strange series of muffled noises. Against his better judgment, he opened one eye to see Mulder, collapsed next to him, red-faced and helpless with silent laughter.

Frohike sighed. "I can see we're going for an Anoxia Theme Night. You should probably start breathing anytime now."

Mulder finally recovered himself, swiping at tears with long fingers. "If you want to do that," he managed, "there are better ways."

"Keep your belt to yourself, you sicko," Frohike said firmly. "Even I've got some limits."

Mulder looked mildly embarrassed. "That's not what I had in mind, either. Sure you don't want to see what I got you?"

Frohike thought it over. "Is it illegal?"

"Nope. Is this Twenty Questions?"

"With you, Mulder, this is just common sense. Can we rule out small animals again?"

"Never mind. Maybe the kid would be interested."

"Mulder, so help me, if there's a gerbil in that bag--" He was distracted by Mulder's breathy whisper in his ear. 

"Nothing like that. You should learn to trust me."

"I could get there from here," Frohike said, starting to relax as Mulder's mouth moved down his neck.

"Sappy," Mulder scolded fondly. "You're getting sappy on me."

"You're getting slobber on me."

Mulder chuckled against his shoulder. He was going to say something when they heard a particularly loud cracking noise from the bathroom. 

Frohike winced. "I hate to think what that is."

"Maybe they're escaping down the drain. Why would they fill your bathtub with crabs?"

Frohike shrugged. "Dunno. Why would they fill the storage with ping pong balls? Naked shore crabs seem almost boring at this point."

"Naked shore crabs?"

"That's what the professor said they were."

"That's interesting."

"It's because they don't have bristles."

"No, I know that."

Frohike stared at the top of Mulder's head. "You knew that?"

"Yeah. That's not really what's interesting about them."

"I probably don't want to know."

"They're some of the hungriest crabs around. They're aggressive predators, among the most voracious small crabs on the Pacific coast."

"That's comforting, considering we're sharing a room with several thousand of the bastards."

"They don't fly, they don't jump, and they don't eat people. Relax. I'm just saying, it makes sense that they chose the naked shore crabs instead of mole crabs or something."

"Repeat that sentence, will you? Slowly."

"It's just that if they wanted to feed your clam to a type of crab--" He broke off abruptly. "Okay, I suppose overall it doesn't make any sense."

"Right. Why not just steal the clam? And why leave all the specimens and the other trace?"

"Maybe they just wanted you to think the crabs were an accident. Accelerated breeding, maybe."

"Well, I did think that, initially. I mean, Dak--"

"Dak?"

"The guy who took us to Maury. He was saying that crabs live in the clams. And you and I both know what some of that mutant crap can do to stuff, and I'm not sure the clam was normal to begin with. So when the storage closet was fine, I just assumed it was something like that."

"The ping pong balls were kind of obvious."

"Yeah. We know these people, Mulder. Why not just burn the whole thing down? These are not subtle people."

"I suppose not." Mulder was idly playing with Frohike's chest hair, while the Gunman kept his right arm carefully out of the way. It was stretched over his head, making him look, Mulder thought with a smile, like a pin-up boy. He pulled Frohike's glasses off and slid one hand down to trace the older man's ribs. Frohike practically purred.

Mulder leaned in and gently sucked at the nearest nipple. 

"Oh…" Frohike's hand buried itself in Mulder's hair again, fingers playing across his scalp and leaving his whole body tingling. Mulder's own hand pressed briefly against the jut of the older man's hip as he swiped his tongue sharply across the nipple in his teeth. Frohike groaned, long and deep, arching himself against Mulder.

Mulder tried it again, delighted with the noise, and Frohike's other hand was suddenly at his cheek, rubbing teasingly against the stubble. "Mmm…" he sighed into all that chest hair. "Scully's nowhere near this much fun to share a room with."

Frohike's moan twisted into a laugh and a gasp when Mulder slid his hand back along his zipper. He could feel Mulder's grin against him. "Maybe you should show her the pop-up book," he muttered.

"I did. She called me a pervert."

"Ohhh… We have so much in common."

"Scully thinks we're both perverts?"

"No… We both think you're a pervert."

Mulder laughed. "Yeah, but you love me for it."

"Well, that's true." He wriggled a bit and arched a little, and then he was naked with Mulder laying half on top of him, and then Mulder was naked too, hard against his leg. "Okay, so what'd you get," he asked, not as collected as he could have hoped. 

Mulder grinned down at him, and raised his hand to display--

"What the fuck is that?"

Mulder held it closer so he could see the picture better. "Therapy."

"Tell me that's not what I think it is."

"Well, let's just say it wouldn't do The Brotherhood any good."

Frohike squeezed his eyes closed tight. "Mulder, we had an agreement. No more novelty condoms."

"It's not a novelty. It's therapy," Mulder insisted. "They didn't have any clams, but I thought a gooseneck barnacle would help you get over your clam issues."

"I can't _tell_ you how much it won't help."

Mulder's free hand was roaming Frohike's body, which was responding despite his best intentions. 

"You know," Mulder said smoothly, "the barnacle has the longest penis in relation to body size…"

"Mulder!"

Frohike tried smothering Mulder's mouth against his belly, but the lecture continued. "Some of them have penises up to seven times their body length. Even a gooseneck barnacle has a penis-to-body ratio of one-and-a-half inches to five inches. That's like me having a twenty-two inch penis."

Frohike blinked and thought about it. "That'd be… something, all right," he said eventually. "Holy cow."

Mulder grinned down at him. "In your case, it'd be a little less…"

"I'm going next door. The kid doesn't make short jokes."

Mulder tried for offended. "It'd still be nineteen inches or so. Nothing to sneeze at."

"Mulder, what the hell would you do with nineteen inches, anyhow?"

The younger man grinned. "Well, barnacles are hermaphroditic. So each of them unfurls its penis, which is prehensile, did I mention that?"

"Mulder," Frohike whimpered. "I don't need to hear this."

"And they reach around until they can get their penises into a barnacle nearby. So sometimes barnacles will fertilize each other. I've seen the footage--it's amazing."

Frohike covered his eyes and tried _not_ to think about the images Mulder was suggesting. "Mulder?"

"Mmm, yeah. What?"

"If you don't put that fucking thing away, you're gonna be rooming with Jimmy and I'm moving in with J. Wayne."

There was a quiet thump of something hitting the carpet. "Consider it gone." He looked up at Frohike. "And consider _me_ ," he said, the laughter just below the surface of his low voice, "sulking."

"God--" Frohike flipped him over fast enough to leave spots in front of Mulder's eyes, and when they cleared Frohike was sucking at his lower lip, muttering harsh encouragements. Mulder was careful of Mel's arm this time, keeping his hands to Frohike's torso. When his fingers trailed between the older man's thighs, Frohike groaned, pushing himself down hard against Mulder. 

"Mulder."

"Ummm, yeah. Yeah--Huh?" Mulder blinked, trying to refocus. "What?"

"Tell me you have some normal rubbers, too."

"I told you, I'm always prepared." Mulder shifted slightly, reaching over the side of the bed, and fumbled in his abandoned jeans. Lube and condoms were pressed into Frohike's hand. "Fuck me, Fro."

"All in good time, Mulder." He slipped a slow finger into Mulder's ass, and concentrated for a while on making him moan, which he did a little louder than was perhaps strictly necessary. Frohike himself was acutely aware of J. Wayne on the other side of the wall, and he knew Mulder was too. 

Thinking about the kid reminded him of something. He had to repeat the agent's name a couple of times to get his attention.

"Hmm…?"

"What's VMD?"

"Huh?"

"VMD. You and J. Wayne were talking about printing the balls."

"Oh." Mulder shook his head, remembering. "Vacuum metal deposition. It's what tech geeks do with extra time and money. You, uh, you take your evidence, that you think might have latent prints on it, and you seal it in a vacuum chamber. Then you--oh, God, Fro, your hands--you, uh. You evaporate a couple milligrams of gold and zinc in there, and they condense on the evidence, on the prints."

"Sounds expensive."

"Yeah… The whole process is… automated, though, so you can get consistent--consistent--" Mulder panted for a moment as Frohike teased his prostate. "You, uh. _God_ … God, that's good."

Frohike withdrew and waited patiently for Mulder to resume his seminar. 

"Where was I?" he said after a while, running his hand across his face. "Oh… The results are consistently better, and it works where other methods don't. You can, uh," he swallowed, watching Frohike roll the condom onto himself. "You can use it if cyanoacrylate ether fuming doesn't work, even."

"Superglue, right," Frohike said absently.

"Yeah…" Mulder took a deep breath as Frohike pushed his legs up and spread him. " _Ooohhhhh_ …." A deep moan was torn from him as Frohike thrust slowly into him. "Ohh." He whimpered when Frohike reached for his swollen shaft with a knowing grip. Mulder struggled to get his legs around the older man, to pull him deeper, faster. Mel didn't respond to his urgings, and he threw his head back, trying to buck into Mel's hand instead. 

He held Mulder still until he was in that tight ass up to his balls, and flicked his thumb across the throbbing vein on Mulder's cock. 

Mulder cried out at the sensation, taken by surprise. "Mel…" The pleading note was back in his voice. "Hard, Mel. Fuck me hard."

Frohike wouldn't have been surprised if the people across the hall heard that. He grinned slightly and pulled out, still slow enough to torment Mulder. When he thrust back in, it was hard and fast, and Mulder's shout was even louder.

"Harder--"

Frohike ran his hand along Mulder's leg, demanding he spread wider. "I'm not… nineteen inches, Mulder," he mumbled. 

Mulder's laugh was ragged. "You _feel_ like twenty two. Harder," he insisted.

Frohike did his best. Mulder was rhapsodizing about--something--as he came, pulling Frohike with him.

They stayed like that, still tangled together, gasping for breath. Frohike's brain eventually started working again. 

"Mulder?"

"Hmm?" The younger man had that glassy-eyed sated look that was second only to The Pout. 

"The Mounties, Mulder?"

"Mounties." 

Frohike sighed. "The Mounties. You were talking about--"

"Oh." Mulder stretched languidly, and Frohike had a sudden moment of gratitude for his age. At least these days there was a chance of getting through a couple of conversations with Mulder without pinning him down and fucking him again. Even when he looked like _that_.

"We used to have to use the RCMP's setup. They were the first ones in North America to get one." He yawned. "It's been used on evidence up to twenty years old, to find latents. It doesn't damage the evidence, which is good, and if you evaporate silver, you can use it to read tooling marks on credit cards. So it's good for fraud cases. Plus it provides superior resolution… Didn't I already explain this?"

"I was distracted," Frohike said, staggering to his feet. "Hey," he said. "You were imagining I was J. Wayne, weren't you."

"Would I do that?" Mulder tried to look innocent.

"Yes."

"Actually, I was imagining _I_ was J. Wayne."

"Oh, good."

"Huh?"

"So was I." He Cheshired into the bathroom, the grin hanging in the air for a bare moment as he closed the door behind him.

**

"Guys?" Jimmy said in awed tones. "What do you make of that?"

The three of them were silent for a very long moment as they stared at the sky.

"Keep driving," Langly eventually instructed. "I'm out of shirts and so are you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Up: Caffeine, Conspiracies, and the Fortean Nature of Fishes X: The Strawberry Ice Cream Show: In which all our boys are reunited, just in time to experience bizarre forms of cruelty to produce, while Scully mocks Mulder mercilessly from afar.


	10. The Strawberry Ice Cream Show

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When it rains it rains all the colours in my paintbox…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The subtitle in this part is a reference to an infamous bit of UFOlogy idiocy which has come to epitomize the collective paranoia and absurdity of certain elements of the conspiracy subculture. There can be only one Bill Moore (at least in UFO circles), but _everyone_ can enjoy Strawberry Ice Cream. The summary is from XTC, "Ballet for a Rainy Day". _Rainbow_ , as in Project Rainbow, is Len Tasche, who hates Mulder for some unspecified reason vaguely referred to Weekend V; Jeremy Tuperan, also from Weekend V, and his pushy partner Werner "Slim" Struzyna, ditto. My apologies to Monty Python, the Fabulous Purple One, and Fountains of Wayne. The lobster story, tragically, is apparently real. WUHPS, WETIIS, and the Cayces are not.
> 
> So this is where it all starts getting weird. In this chapter, we have one or two, depending how you count, fantasized M/M/Ms, some actual Mulder/Frohike sex, a little bit of vague OMC/goat-named-Clara jokes, and an assortment of people somewhat aggressively hitting on Langly, mostly just to make him really uncomfortable because it seemed funny. If you're having a triggery day, it might look like dubcon, forewarned is forearmed. Oh yes, and Mulder and Frohike make a rape joke or two, because they're kind of just that way. There's also some mild violence of the sort where people get hit by or with weird things, and a kind of gross moment where Langly winds up with a really close look at some dead animal. It's all played for laughs, and no one has ever complained about this to me, but at least you've been warned. (Mostly people complain about the suggestions that people are crazy and need antipsychotics, but as a schizophrenic let me tell you that if you can't laugh about the crazy things supposedly normal people do, you're in for a world of hurt.)
> 
> Spoilers: A couple of little ones for XF Dreamland, Dreamland 2, LGM AAY in a vague sort of way, and general Morris Fletcherdom, you can decide if that includes The X-Files Episode That Never Happened, which, if it _did_ happen, clearly was resolved in a less fatal way than CC suggested. Spoilers also for XF: _Fight the Future_ , but also in a vague, inconsequential, You Know The Heroes Will Survive Because That's The Way It's Supposed To Happen And Only A Total Jackass Would Screw That Up kind of way. (Grudge? Me? Never!)

When Frohike woke, Mulder was sitting up in bed next to him, staring at him with a curiously intense expression. The agent had his reading glasses on, and Frohike was hard pressed not to toss the man's laptop away and fuck him silly. He stepped on the impulse, and followed Mulder's line of sight. Once he realized what Mulder was looking at, he tried to pull his arm away, but Mulder grabbed his wrist and wouldn't let go.

"Mulder, it's way too early…" he started.

Mulder shook his head, brushing off the half-joke. "Seriously, Fro, what happened?"

Frohike shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe I'm allergic to something."

"That's not an allergy. It looks like a contact burn."

Frohike sighed and sat up, grabbing for his own glasses. "Let go, Mulder."

Mulder did, reluctantly, and Frohike regarded his arm for a moment. "It is getting worse. I think I'm allergic to the cream I put on it."

"It doesn't look like an allergy." Mulder shook his head again, impatiently, and pushed the laptop in front of Frohike. "It looks like this."

Frohike stared at the picture on Mulder's screen. He looked back at his arm, and back at the screen. Finally he cleared his throat. "It does look pretty similar, doesn't it. What is that?"

Mulder kept glaring. "That," he said, jerking his head at the screen, "is a contact burn. And so is that," he finished, jabbing a finger towards Frohike's arm. "It's the result of exposure to a UFO."

Frohike decided he didn't want to think about that. "It's just a rash, Mulder," he said flatly, and stood up to go to the can. "You can have the shower after me."

"Do I have to share with the crabs?"

Frohike sighed and detoured back to the bed to grab his robe before knocking on the adjoining door.

"Cover yourself, will you?" he instructed Mulder. "Don't want to give the kid a heart attack."

J. Wayne opened the door fairly quickly and cast a suspiciously comprehensive glance at the bed. Frohike tried not to laugh. J. Wayne dragged his eyes back to Frohike.

"I'm, uh, all done, so if you need my shower, I can, um, go down to the coffee shop for breakfast."

Mulder lounged, there was no other word for it, across the bed and grinned. "Sounds like a great idea."

"Down boy," Frohike said without bothering to look back at him. "I'll be done in a few. J. Wayne, you stand right there and make sure he doesn't try to get past you. I want to get _clean_ , Mulder."

Mulder's snickers accompanied him across the kid's room and into the bathroom. He shut the door and heard Mulder immediately say something to J. Wayne. Frohike wondered if he should have left them alone together, what with Mulder naked and in bed and all. It'd take a lot to resist that, and they _did_ have things to do today.

He slipped off his robe, listening carefully, but all he heard was normal conversational tones. The kid had a lot more restraint than Frohike would have guessed.

Frohike turned on the shower, but not before checking for clams, crabs, ping pong balls, little gray men, small rubber duckies, God alone knew what all was possible at this point. He heard a door slam over the sound of the water and wondered if he'd overestimated J. Wayne's self-control in the face of a totally nude, lithely stretching Mulder, something he, Frohike, could have described with accuracy down to the last hair. Mulder in the morning was a hell of a sight, and something Frohike rarely bothered to resist. Too bad they had such a full schedule…

Mulder's cockteasing laugh and the sudden vision of Mulder and J. Wayne together quivered straight to the place at the base of his balls where the shock and the twitch started, stiffening him into full hardness. He could practically see Mulder pulling the young man down, spreading that beautiful body across the kid while he smoothly disposed of the kid's suit… Sliding those full lips up the kid's chest to his neck… God.

Mel groaned softly to himself, barely aware he was doing it. He tried to push the image from his mind, but it stayed, stubborn and vivid. He slid his fingertips down to grasp his prick, his grip a little awkward with his left hand, but he wasn't willing to risk the rash under hot water again. He stroked himself gently, slick with the falling water, and braced his free arm on the cool tile. He closed his eyes, concentrating on the image of Mulder, Mulder, sucking the kid off. He didn't know what the kid would look like naked--yet--but imagination supplied sparse, fine hair, gentle movement of muscles, well-defined hips and thighs, tight, pale balls, and a long, proud cock to go with his lean, tall frame.

He panted, stroking himself slowly, slowly, under the hot water, reveling in sensation and each image his mind held out to him. Mulder, swallowing the kid down, down, all the way to the root, fingers dancing across the kid's balls, J. Wayne with his head thrown back as he begged for more, those beautiful writers' hands tangled in Mulder's silky dark hair.

Mel moaned, and the echo of it froze him. He stared for an eternity at a tall form silhouetted against the shower curtain, not sure which man it was, not sure which man he hoped it was. The curtain flicked away, revealing Mulder--had he doubted, really?--nude and lazy, the half twist of a smirk on those perfect lips.

"Can I play too?"

Mel sighed, not entirely in aggravation, and stepped back to make room. "Water conservation?" His dick, slightly softened from uncertainty a moment before, twitched and hardened under the heat of Mulder's gaze.

"In Seattle?" Mulder teased back, planting both palms on Mel's chest and pushing him against the shower wall. He leaned in and down and tasted of toothpaste as he smothered Frohike's retort. Mulder slid down his body, then, leaving a minty trail of kisses, taking Mel's left hand in his own and placing it on his shoulder.

Mel closed his eyes and twisted his hand into Mulder's now wet hair. "Mmmm…" His head lolled against the tiles as he waited for the blessing of Mulder's mouth. Another eternity, another heartbeat, and Mel found the voice begging this time was his own.

Mulder chuckled, licked, laughed at the reaction. Held Mel's hips and arranged his own hard length against Mel's leg. A noise like a purr rumbled in the agent's chest as he slid his tongue along Mel's dick. When he took the head into his mouth, Mel grunted and tried to thrust deeper, but Mulder wouldn't let him.

**

"Mulder!" Mel's desperate groan was audible even over the sound of running water. It came clearly to the bedroom through the door Mulder had thoughtfully left open, winking at J. Wayne as he did so.

Minutes before, Mulder had leaned over the edge of the bed, displaying rather a lot of smooth, pale skin, and snagged his boxers and something else, which he'd tossed at J. Wayne.

J. Wayne had caught the little box automatically, and done a classic double take. "What--"

"Consolation prize," Mulder had smirked.

Some people said it with flowers, J. Wayne had reflected. Agent Mulder said it--whatever it was--with novelty condoms shaped like gooseneck barnacles. He wondered how Mel put up with it. He concluded that Mulder had his advantages. Thought about it some more as Mulder had squirmed into his shorts, barely concealed by the blankets. Mulder had stretched again as he climbed from the bed, and J. Wayne had stopped speculating and _known_.

Mulder had, what was the word, _sauntered_ , into the other room--J. Wayne's room--in boxers and smug grin.

And now here J. Wayne was, listening to--well. He could guess. There was none of the weird conversation of the night before. In fact, all he could hear was Mel becoming increasingly incoherent. He thought about Mulder's mouth, that full curve… He wondered exactly what their relationship was, beyond the obvious.

**

Mulder's tongue rasped across Frohike's sensitive cockhead, managing almost the same speed and pressure as the shower water itself. Mel closed his eyes and leaned into it, imagining it to be--it _all_ to be--Mulder's clever, clever tongue. He almost came right there.

"Mulder!" he said urgently.

Mulder pulled away, alarmed. "Fro?"

Frohike patted at his shoulders reassuringly, starting to lose some of the tension in his far-too-tight body. "Nothing, nothing, it's okay," he panted. "Just I'm going to come."

Mulder was exasperated. "That's pretty much the whole point, Fro," he said snarkily, giving a sharp nip to Mel's scrotum. Mel yelped and jumped and Mulder looked gratified.

"Mulder," Mel gasped. "Not, please, not yet…"

Mulder moved back and kissed the tip of his cock lightly, just enough to make him twitch, and then slid gracefully up Frohike's body till they were as close to face-to-face as they got.

"Mel?" he teased. "What do you want first?"

Mel groaned. "You're gonna kill me."

"Nah. I'm not into necrophilia."

Mel rolled his eyes. "Hey, that's one for the list."

"What is," Mulder said suspiciously.

"Something that doesn't turn you on," Mel snickered.

Mulder sulked briefly and Mel dove in to kiss him ferociously. Mulder finally broke away, taking deep breaths to get himself under control.

"So what do you want to do first," Mulder repeated, arms sliding around the smaller man.

Mel reached up and bit at Mulder's lower lip, the one he dreamed about. "You, Mulder," he said in a voice so low Mulder barely heard it over the noise of the shower. "I want you. I want to fuck you."

Mulder grinned triumphantly, prompting another long, deep kiss. "How about the kid?" he mumbled against Mel's lips.

"Hm?" Frohike, Mulder's hands expertly kneading his ass, didn't entirely remember the question.

"The kid. We should get him in here."

Frohike's turn to grin. "Tell you what. I'll scream 'rape', and he'll come running. Then we can strip him and drag him between us."

Mulder pretended to consider it. "A brilliant plan, Fro, except for one minor detail."

"Only one?" Mel responded wryly.

"What makes you think he'll come running to save you?"

"I didn't say he'd come running to save me, Mulder, I figured he'd--"

"--Come running to watch," Mulder finished with him. "You're a sick man, Frohike."

Mel tried for offended, but mostly accomplished naked, dripping, and hard. Mulder thought it was incredibly sexy, and said so.

Frohike grinned. "Never mind the kid." He spun the agent away from him. "Hands over your head, and spread 'em."

Mulder laughed. "Sicko."

The repartee died as Frohike fingered Mulder open, trying to keep their schedule in mind. The way Mulder moved didn't make it easy, and they may have gotten a little distracted. Mel hadn't meant to thrust so quickly into Mulder, but the hot water died as he was inching his dick inside and he shoved forward hard and fast, slamming his hand on the tap and shutting the cold water off. Mulder bellowed in surprise, and Frohike wasted a moment wondering what the kid was making of _that_.

**

J. Wayne heard Mulder's shout from where he sat on the edge of the bed, squeezing his erection through the cloth of his pants. With the water off, he could hear every sound, and he squeezed a little harder, rolling his cock a little with a firm palm.

J. Wayne had met the journalist and the agent a year earlier at a UFO conference in Indiana. Mel had, for some reason, taken a shine to him, and the last night of the conference had invited him to dinner, insisting there was someone who had to meet him. Throughout the meal, the agent had flirted with J. Wayne, which had obviously amused Mel. But it had become very clear that Mel and Mulder were a couple, for lack of a better word.

Over the past year emails had been exchanged between the three of them in which one or the other would flirt shamelessly with him. Weirdly, it had also become apparent that they were sharing the emails with each other. Not that he minded--he just wasn't sure where he fit in between them. He had eventually, reluctantly, concluded that the two men were using him to make each other jealous, to goad each other on. Last night's display had clearly been staged with the full awareness that he could hear everything through the thin walls.

And he had. Every last pant and moan, every grunt and groan. Every weird word of Mulder's lectures. He'd felt keenly again the loss in the realization that they were only using him. He didn't mind, exactly, couldn't, really, considering how good it made things for them, and they were obviously happy to let him listen in--but damn, he wished they were serious.

He turned the condom over in his mind, wondering what it meant, if anything. If it was an invitation. Unbidden, his imagination inserted him between the two men, his mouth in constant contact with both Mulder's face and what idle speculation promised would be Mel's stout, dark cock. He could almost smell Mel's musky arousal, almost taste Mel's hot skin with the water dripping off it, the sharp coppery tang of Mulder's tongue.

The urge to join them in the bathroom was nearly overwhelming. The only thing that kept him rooted to his perch on the bed was how much he needed the two of them, and the rest of the Gunmen, to help with his story. If it wasn't for the story, he'd gladly risk rejection, mockery, _and_ the possibility of being tossed naked and wet into the motel hallway. But the story was important. Sure, it wasn't Peter Arnett-under-the-desk-in-the-Gulf-War important, but the whole Maury mess--it was about time the truth was told. Besides, it might not be the Pentagon papers, but it was _his_ story.

J. Wayne was pulled back to the present by a noise barely identifiable as Mel, a whine that dopplered to a disintegrating raspy moan. When he heard breathless laughter, he realized he was about to be caught in the act, so to speak, and reluctantly pulled his hand from his pants. In that moment, the story didn't seem quite as important, and he regretted not having just walked into the bathroom and slipped into the shower with them. His gaze fell on the condom again. Surely an invitation…

The thought sent him scurrying awkwardly for the bathroom in the adjoining room where he could finish in relative privacy.

**

"I guess we scared him off," Mulder said cheerfully, emerging from the bathroom and looking around.

Frohike snorted. "Not likely." He sighed and walked back to their room. "He probably thinks I'm a pervert--" he began, picking up a sock and sniffing at it.

Mulder made a face. "You are. Anybody who wears the same socks two days in a row--"

Frohike rolled his eyes and let the sock fall. "Yeah, yeah." He was about to add something when a muted moan emanated from behind the closed door.

The two men exchanged a look. Another moan, followed by a rattling noise. Mulder smirked.

Frohike covered his face with both hands. "I don't want to know," he muttered. "I don't want to know."

Mulder rapped on the closed door, snickering. They heard a sharp gasp. "I'd be careful in there, J. Wayne," he said casually. "There was this guy in England who shoplifted a couple of lobsters."

"Do I want to hear this story?" Frohike asked plaintively, pausing in his dressing.

Mulder grinned. "He'd fit in perfectly with the Brotherhood of Pragmatic Resistance."

Frohike stood up. "I think it's time to go."

**

Another envelope waited for them at the desk. Mulder took a long look at the enclosed photos and handed them to Frohike.

"Our nutcase is back, I see."

"Maybe you can stick Allen with these, too."

"I've seen more convincing pictures on fridge doors, Mulder."

**

Two Grand Slams and a fruit plate later, Frohike looked up. "Oh, shit."

Mulder and J. Wayne stopped talking and looked where Frohike was staring. "Uh-oh," J. Wayne said.

"Who's that?"

The woman approached. "May I sit with you," she asked in her high, nervous voice. "Agent Mulder, I'm pleased to finally meet you." She held out her twitching hand, and he had no choice but to take it. The woman held on. "Barnacles!" she said, startled.

J. Wayne blushed bright red, but Frohike didn't notice. He was too busy trying not to blush himself. Barnacles. Of course.

Mulder blinked, tried not to grin, ended with a stifled snicker. "And you are?" he managed.

"Agent Mulder, Sela Loy." Frohike made introductions while J. Wayne tried to recover himself. "Sela Loy, Agent Mulder, but you knew that. Come to share some more predictions?"

"No, well, I needed to, ah, meet Agent Mulder."

"Needed?" Mulder questioned.

She thrust something into his hands. "Don't look at it. Twist it six times."

Mulder blinked some more, this time at Frohike. "What--?"

"Go ahead, Mulder."

Mulder shrugged and did as he was told. She took it from him and set it on the table, a pattern of black and yellow squares on the top. She jumped as if she'd been stung. "Bees!"

It was Mulder's turn to jump. "What the hell?"

"Bees," she said again, a little more calmly. She flipped the Cube around to view apparently random patterns on four sides, and a reverse of the black and yellow on the bottom. "Bees," she repeated. "Bees. Lots of bees."

"Whoa," Mulder said. "No way. No bees. No more bees." He shook his head emphatically. "The last time there were bees, I ended up in the Antarctic without a ride home."

Frohike grinned at him. "And a naked partner, as I recall."

Mulder winced. "Covered with alien goo."

J. Wayne stared. "I don't think I want to know." He hesitated. "How did you get home?"

"Amtrack," Frohike said shortly. "Tell us about the bees."

The woman closed her eyes and stroked her Rubik's Cube. "Four thousand, two hundred, and ninety-two bees, to be precise."

"That's pretty precise," Frohike agreed. "Anything else you'd like to share with us? How's the weather looking?"

The woman smiled, eager but unoffended. "It's going to rain. A lot."

"Damn," Frohike said dryly. "I left my umbrella at home. It had mice in it."

Loy twitched visibly and stood to leave. "It wouldn't have helped, anyway," was her parting shot.

**

"You'd better stand back, Mulder," Frohike advised him. "This guy was pretty squirrelly when we were here last. I think our friends in dark suits had visited him. The way you dress…"

Mulder shrugged. "What about the kid here?"

"He's met J. Wayne." Frohike knocked on the door.

"I'm coming," came a voice from within. J. Wayne and Frohike exchanged odd looks.

The door was opened by a short man with a beer belly, but there the resemblance to Payter ended.

"Is Mr. Payter home?" J. Wayne asked politely.

"You're looking at him."

"Uh, Mr. Payter, Senior."

"I'm as senior as they get. Can I help you?" The man peered at them suspiciously, and then his face lightened. "Hey, I know you. You're the guys who came here the other day."

"Yes, we did. And you are?" J. Wayne was still trying to be polite.

"Marcus Payter. Don't you remember? We met Wednesday, you and, uh, the Lone Ranger here, right?" He gestured at Mulder. "You're new. Are you a reporter too?"

"Lone Gunman," J. Wayne corrected blankly. "We, uh…"

Frohike rescued the kid. "You're not the man we met," he said in his most threatening voice. "What the hell is going on here?"

The man seemed genuinely puzzled. "What do you mean? You came to see me, to ask about my, uh, experience. There wasn't anything more I could tell you." He glanced at them again. "Still isn't. You're wasting your time."

"What the hell is going on here," Frohike repeated, stepping closer. "If this is some kind of--"

Mulder pulled him away. "Hang on. Mr. Payter?" The man nodded, starting to look annoyed. "Mr. Marcus Payter?"

The man nodded again. "Yeah. Who are you?"

"Special Agent Fox Mulder. FBI." Good delivery. Johnny Staccato with a hint of Who-Wants-To-Know. The man took a step back.

"So you're not a reporter, then."

"No. Can you tell me, sir, do you live here?"

"Yes."

"For how long?"

Frohike made a noise like a growl under his breath. Mulder elbowed him.

"Fourteen years. Look, these guys came by the other day about a UFO sighting." He seemed embarrassed. "It was nothing, really. Just lights, and maybe I overreacted, let my imagination get away from me. I told them that, and they left. Now they're back, with an FBI agent? What's going on here?"

"That's what I'd like to know," Frohike muttered ominously.

"Frohike." Mulder turned to him. "You're saying this isn't the Marcus Payter you met."

"I'm the only one I know about," the man put in, starting to sound angry.

"No way." Frohike shook his head emphatically. "That guy was older, and balding, and he had a big red nose. There's something going on here, and this guy is behind it!"

"Hey, I don't have to take this--"

"Just a moment, sir," Mulder said smoothly, grabbing Frohike's arm and moving away. "Are you sure, Fro?" he asked in a low voice.

Frohike calmed down a bit and nodded again. "Look, Mulder, I don't know what's going on here, but this is _not_ the guy we met."

Mulder turned to J. Wayne. "What about you?"

The kid shook his head too. "No. It's not the same guy. Definitely not."

"Is this some kind of joke?" the man demanded.

"No, sir," Mulder said. "Just trying to get to the bottom of this. You remember these two men?"

"Wayne something with _Powder Keg_ , and the other guy came with him. Sure I remember them. They came over Wednesday morning. There wasn't much I could tell them. Is this some stupid joke?"

"What about the metal," J. Wayne asked suddenly. "We asked you about the metal."

"What metal? Are you guys cracked?"

"The Goddamned metal--" Frohike closed his mouth with a snap and leaned forward to peer in the house. The tartan beast was still there, but the place had been cleaned. He deflated some. "Weirdness," he announced to no one in particular.

Mulder smiled politely at the man. "Could we see some ID? I'm sure that would clear things up."

"Hey, I still haven't seen your ID, Mr. FBI Man."

Mulder apologized and produced his credentials. The man relented and offered a Washington State driver's license that showed him to be Marcus Andrew Payter. It looked well-worn, and the picture was indisputably that of the man before them. "Well, I guess there's been some kind of mistake," Mulder said lamely.

"No problem," Payter said, all smiles now. "Hey, while you're here?"

"Yeah?"

"Have you heard the good news about Amway?"

**

"You didn't have to stop me, Mulder," Frohike griped. "I was gonna beat it out of him." He turned to J. Wayne and jerked a thumb behind him to indicate Mulder. "That guy just got lucky my chick was there."

J. Wayne fought a laugh, only to lose when Mulder fluttered his hand over his heart. "Lawsy, you men are _so_ violent!"

Frohike almost smiled. "Your slip is showing, baby."

Mulder grinned, then sobered. "Are you _sure_ that was a different guy?"

"Very damned sure, Mulder," Frohike snapped.

Mulder held his hands out in surrender. "I believe you, I believe you. It's just that this is a little…"

"Weird?" J. Wayne supplied.

"Mulder, stop humoring me and just believe me, okay?"

"Is there a difference?" Mulder asked dryly.

"Apparently someone is bored with oral sex," Frohike mused. Mulder shut up.

"Maybe he's a Man In Black," J. Wayne said suddenly.

Frohike and Mulder looked at each other.

"Looking like that?" Frohike sneered.

"Two words, Fro: Morris Fletcher."

Frohike stiffened. "We do not mention that name."

"Who's Morris Fletcher?" J. Wayne asked.

"You remember the Tommy Lee Jones character from _Men In Black_?"

"Mulder, for fuck's sake."

"Exactly not like him at all," Mulder finished, smirking.

"Oh," said the kid.

"Mulder," Frohike sighed. "Fletcher is a two-bit pig-fucking syphilitic rat of a con man," he explained to J. Wayne, "who just happens to be employed by the government."

"He's got kind of a grudge," Mulder stage-whispered to J. Wayne. "The boys got sucked in by Fletcher a time or two."

Frohike glared. "And you've never been fucked over by him."

Mulder smirked some more. "Not like you boys."

Frohike snorted. "Mulder, I've got some security vid I'll have to show to you someday. You ever wonder where you got that waterbed you were so proud of?"

J. Wayne blinked.

Mulder swallowed. "Let's go see WETIIS."

J. Wayne blinked again. "Wheaties?"

Frohike shook his head. "Washington Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence Institutes."

**

"I'm not lost," Mulder repeated defensively. "This… just isn't the road I wanted to be on."

"By which you mean, I assume," Frohike said dryly, "that this is the road that gets us lost."

Whatever Mulder was about to say was pre-empted by the sudden splat of purplish goo on the windshield.

"Nice," Frohike muttered. "Damned birds."

Another glob hit the hood of the rental, and then the place was covered in them. Mulder braked carefully, sliding a bit on the smears on the road. "What the hell?" he asked.

J. Wayne leaned forward to see up through the sunroof, which was fortunately closed. "It's, uh--"

The splatter got worse, the accompanying noise drowning out conversation briefly. Then it abruptly stopped.

The three men eyed each other.

Frohike cleared his throat uneasily in the unnatural silence. "Waterspout?"

Mulder grinned. "I only want to see you bathing in the purple rain," he warbled.

Frohike sighed and covered his face. "Mulder…" he said warningly.

"I never wanted to be your weekend lover," Mulder continued, badly off key. "I only wanted to be some kind of friend…"

J. Wayne twitched. "I'm going to have a look," he said shortly, fleeing from the car.

Frohike laughed, and Mulder held out a hand to him with great melodrama. "Let me lead you into the purple rain, purple rain…" he sang.

Frohike thumped his head repeatedly on the dashboard.

J. Wayne smeared at part of the windshield with some napkins, and peered at them through the mess. Frohike opened his door. "Okay, what the hell is it?"

Mulder joined them, dipping fingers cautiously into the goo. "Last time I did this, it was bile," he reflected.

"Bile's yellow," J. Wayne pointed out. "This is another one of those stories I don't want to hear, isn't it."

Mulder sniffed carefully. "Well, there was this mutant who constructed cocoons of bile and newspaper… These are elderberries!" he said suddenly.

Frohike stared. "As in, your father smelled of?" he asked.

Mulder shrugged. "Let's get out of here before it starts raining hamsters."

J. Wayne was still working on it. "Why would elderberries be falling out of the sky?"

Mulder grinned faintly. "Waterspout?"

He handed the napkins to Mulder. "Ms. Loy _did_ say it was going to rain today."

"So she did," Frohike sighed, scraping off his shoes. "Elderberries."

Mulder got back into the car and started the windshield wipers. "Hand me the map."

**

Jimmy came to a stop behind a car on the side of the road, whose two occupants, both women, appeared to be poring over a map spread on the hood. Langly took out his earphones and turned to Jimmy.

"What is it this time?"

Jimmy shrugged, opening his door. "They look like they need help."

"Since when are we roadside services?"

Byers put a hand on his shoulder. "We can probably stand to stretch our legs anyway. Let's go see what's going on."

"What's going on" turned out to be a search project. The women introduced themselves as Dr. Adrienne Spratt and Julie Craswell of WUHPS--the Washington Unknown Humanoid Preservation Society.

"So you're looking for," Byers managed only a tiny sigh, "Bigfoot."

"Sasquatch," Dr. Spratt frowned.

"Sorry, Sasquatch. Any sightings?"

"Quite a lot of them. Roslyn is something of an historical hotspot for Sasquatch. But this has been an extraordinary week. Seventeen visual confirmations, six sets of tracks, and a number of reports of Sasquatch stealing things."

"Stealing things?" Byers questioned.

Craswell consulted a notebook. "Food, shovels, clothing items, a garden gnome, and rope. Also a car, but that seems unlikely. It was driven, not carried, away. We suspect the man's son."

The Gunmen nodded.

"Also, four missing cats and a poodle, which people believe were eaten. At least one of the missing animals, the poodle, is definitely dead, some kind of attack."

Langly looked queasy. "Yuck."

Byers shook himself out of his thoughts and smiled at the women. "You said we're near Roslyn? Is there anywhere to eat there?"

"It is about lunchtime," Craswell commented to Spratt, folding up the map.

Spratt nodded, eyeing Langly. "Follow us. You can tell us… about yourselves."

**

The women seemed intrigued to meet fellow members of the counterculture press.

"Conspiracies?" Craswell asked. "From the name, I assumed?"

Langly nodded, from his seat between Byers and Jimmy. He hadn't liked Spratt's cooing invitation to call her Adrienne. He liked even less that she was trying to play footsie with him under the table, and not just because she was wearing hiking boots. "JFK, Paperclip, fluoride, that kind of thing. Public service stuff."

Adrienne nodded, hanging on his every word. "Like us, really. The people need to know, to break out of their narrow little worlds defined by what they think they know."

Lunch came, and they discussed the Patterson film, "Of course it's not real, and only an idiot would believe it," according to Spratt, and the Zapruder footage, sharing their expertise.

The door slammed open and a man dashed up to them. "You're that Bigfoot woman, right?" he demanded breathlessly.

Adrienne nodded. "I suppose you could say that."

"He kidnapped Clara!" the man wailed.

"Clara?" Byers murmured.

"My goat," the man clarified.

"Bigfoot's gonna eat your goat?" Jimmy was horrified.

"You take that back! Clara's not some _eatin'_ goat!"

Jimmy blinked.

Langly stared at Byers, mouthing the word "Yuck."

Craswell made room and pulled out her notebook. "Tell us what you know."

**

Jimmy insisted they save Clara from a Fate Worse Than Dinner, and they followed the man, Joe Miller, to his truck, where the goat was last seen being kidnapped by a large hairy hominid.

Jimmy jumped up on the bed of the truck to look for clues.

"She wasn't there. She was in the cab, with me. He took her outta the front seat."

Byers carefully didn't look at him. "Why would you have a goat in the front of the truck with you?"

Langly grabbed his arm. "We don't want to know, Johnny."

Byers blushed faintly. "Which way did the, ah, Sasquatch go?"

The man pointed. "That way."

Spratt issued orders. "You go with Julie," she told Jimmy and Byers. "You come with me," she said to Langly.

Langly swallowed. "Can't I go with them? They might need me?"

"I need you with me." The woman ran her eyes over him again. "If you see anything, stop where you are. Julie will message me. We'll get pictures if we can, then close off the area and take trace. Let's head out, people," she said, hanging onto Langly's arm.

"There!" Langly shouted, before they even separated. Byers was suspicious of the timing, but sure enough, there was something hairy out in the woods at the edge of the lot. The thing seemed to be hunched over something on the ground, and Byers just hoped it wasn't the missing goat.

Adrienne dropped Langly's arm and ran forward, moving silently. Craswell followed, both women checking their cameras.

As they got to the woods, they moved carefully and quietly, trying less to be heard than seen. Langly screeched, sliding on something, and wound up sprawled in a little clearing, with his face in some dead animal. He spat out a mouthful of bloody fur and started retching heavily between screams.

The thing leaning over him seemed mesmerized. It crouched, claws out, huge fox-like face frozen. The long tongue flicked occasionally over the collection of sharp teeth, as if it were tasting Langly's scent in the air. One blood red eye rolled forward to focus on the rest of them.

"Holy cow," Jimmy said.

"My God," Byers breathed, fumbling with his little camera, handing it to Jimmy. "It's a chupacabra." He took a very careful step forward. "Langly," he called quietly. "Langly!"

Spratt eyed Miller. "Is that Clara? The body?"

"Nope," he swallowed heavily. "Ain't her. Looks like a possum. You don't mind, I'll just be going now."

"Don't move.," Byers hissed. "Don't give it any reason to chase you."

Langly had stopped screaming, in fact had fainted. Byers moved slowly forward, watching the thing closely. He grabbed Langly's leg and shook. Langly woke up, looked up, screamed, and fainted again. The thing let out a noise suspiciously like a sigh, turned around and scuttled off.

Byers echoed that sentiment as he pulled Langly up and roused him, then held his shoulder while he barfed up everything he'd ever eaten.

"Did you get a picture?" he asked Jimmy over the disgusting sounds.

"Uh, I dunno. How do you tell?"

Byers let Langly lean against his thigh and took the camera back to play with it a bit. "Some nice shots of your thumb here, Jimmy. Good work," he sighed again. "Adrienne?"

"What?" she asked.

"How did your pictures come out?"

She looked at him blankly. "I didn't take any."

Even Langly looked up at that. "Why not?" Byers asked carefully.

"It obviously wasn't Sasquatch," she said, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. "It wasn't even a hominid."

"Where's Joe?" Craswell asked suddenly, pre-empting what promised to be a memorable explosion from Byers.

"Over here!" he hollered. "I found Clara!"

They waited till Langly could stand, and followed the sound of the bleats. They all stared.

"Why," Jimmy asked, puzzled, "would Bigfoot put makeup on a goat?"

Miller looked uncomfortable. "Bigfoot din't do that."

They looked from him to the goat and back.

Langly cleared his throat. "You gotta get out more, man."

**

"What the hell was that?" Frohike demanded.

Another thump on the roof of the car. And another, and now it was raining peaches, of all things.

Mulder braked, and the three men sat there, waiting. One cracked the windshield, drawing a sigh from Mulder. Eventually it stopped.

Mulder glanced at Frohike. "I told you we needed insurance."

Frohike glared back. "No songs? What's the matter, you don't like Ludacris?"

Mulder snickered a bit. "I didn't know you knew about Ludacris. You could sing this time, Fro."

J. Wayne opened his door at some speed. "I'll look."

Frohike almost smiled. "I think I've been insulted. Why the _fuck_ are peaches falling from the sky, Mulder?"

"It's not like they don't grow on trees."

Frohike pointedly looked around. "I don't see an orchard, do you?" He got out and stood carefully in the mush, staring up. A flash in the corner of his eye and a final peach hit the roof of the car and ricocheted, smacking J. Wayne in the forehead. J. Wayne went over backward, hitting the ground with a splash.

"What the--? Mulder!" Frohike scrambled to get to him, narrowly averting a sprawl of his own. "You okay, kiddo?" he asked, crouching.

J. Wayne blinked up at him, a red, wet splotch on his forehead. "Mel?" he asked faintly.

"Yeah. Shit." He shook the kid's shoulder. "You okay? C'mon, get up. You're a mess."

Mulder grabbed J. Wayne by the other shoulder and they dragged him back into the car.

"What happened?" Mulder wanted to know.

"I guess one bounced off the car and nailed him. How do you feel?"

J. Wayne considered the question. "Squelchy," he sighed. He winced when Mulder wiped at his forehead.

"That's gonna leave a mark," Frohike commented.

Mulder stood up and let out a sigh of his own. "That's it. Call the Space Cayces and tell them we'll see them after lunch. Let's get back to the hotel and clean up."

"And get a new car," Frohike commented, scraping at his shoes again.

"Right. And get a new car. This one smells."

**

 _Crash!_ The back windshield shattered, sending glass fragments all over them. Something thumped into the back of J. Wayne's neck, waking him up. Mulder had been watching him doze in the rearview mirror as he wrapped up his call to WETIIS, Frohike having insisted on driving.

"Next time," Frohike said through gritted teeth, as they brushed at it, "we will get the insurance."

"At least there was only one of them," Mulder observed with what Frohike felt was unnecessary optimism.

J. Wayne picked it up and stared dazedly at it.

Frohike's look could have boiled it in its husk. "Pineapples don't just fall from the damned sky," he said firmly.

"Why not?"

"They're heavy, for one thing."

"Interestingly, that was going to be my first argument, too. If they weren't heavy, they wouldn't fall. They'd be little stupid-looking clouds."

**

"Hey Scully, how's your vacation?"

"Pretty good," she said, somewhat warily. "I'm getting through all those journals I keep putting aside for later."

"You should have stayed in quarantine with me," Mulder snickered. "You could have done a lot of catching up."

"Mulder, I've spent enough time in quarantine with you to know that it's anything but conducive to concentration. I also know you didn't call to hear about potassium levels in advanced phenylketonurics. What do you want."

"You're so mistrustful. I'd be fascinated to hear anything you had to say about whatever you just said."

Scully made an indelicate noise. "What do you want, Mulder. I'm busy."

"Well," Mulder tried to ease into it. "I was wondering if you'd like a vacation to Seattle. They've got a great art museum."

Scully was silent for way too long. Finally she said, "Okay, you've been there less than a day. Do I even want to know what's happened in that short a time?"

"Well, we--"

She cut him off. "No, let me rephrase that. I _don't_ want to know what's happened in that short a time. Goodbye, Mulder. Have a lovely time."

"We've got physical evidence," he said desperately. The woman wasn't bluffing about hanging up, he knew from experience.

"Mulder, if this is about a bunch of photocopies of blurry pictures of atypical cloud formations--"

He ignored the pictures thing for the moment. "I've got DNA samples."

"I'm sure you do, Mulder."

"From a mutated clam," he explained.

"A mutated clam," she repeated without joy. "Send me your samples, Mulder. I'll take a look at them when I get back from vacation."

"Uh, no," he said carefully. This wasn't going to be easy. "You'd have to look at them right away."

"Why?" she asked suspiciously.

"Well, they're live crabs."

She was silent again. "Scully? You there?"

"Live crabs," she repeated. "I thought you said it was a mutant clam."

"Well, the crabs ate the clam."

"Mulder, is there some reason you felt that feeding a specimen to crabs was a necessary step for analysis?"

"It wasn't deliberate. The clam was in the bathtub, and apparently sometime yesterday the crabs ate it."

"Goodbye, Mulder."

"Look, Scully. I've got some samples of some stuff I'd really like you to look at."

"Live crabs."

"Some other things, too."

"Other things, Mulder? What kind of things?"

Mulder didn't really want to get into it on the phone. "Well, we have a pineapple."

"You called to tell me you went produce shopping?"

"It fell on our car. Along with peaches and elderberries."

"Try to be more careful where you park, Mulder."

She hung up.

Mulder tried not to listen to Mel's snickers.

**

A familiar blue van was parked at the hotel when they got back. As Mulder helped Frohike decant a still-glassy J. Wayne from the back seat of what was now a very ripe-smelling car, the side door slid open and Jimmy loped across the pavement, followed by the other Gunmen.

Jimmy stopped, staring at J. Wayne. "Whoa! Another mouse!"

Frohike blinked. "What the hell are you talking about?" he growled. Abruptly it occurred to him. He jerked a peremptory thumb at Mulder. "Help him get the kid inside, okay?" Then he walked over to Byers and Langly.

Langly, who was wearing sunglasses.

"What's with the shades, partner?" he asked in a low voice.

Langly took them off to reveal a puffy bruise.

"What the hell happened?" Mel demanded, looking from one to the other. "You guys have a fight? Or did Bigfoot take a jab at you?"

Byers smiled, but there wasn't a lot of humor in it. "Nothing so conventional. A, uh, someone in a Mickey Mouse costume, in Montana."

Frohike gave Langly a hard look. "You got into a fight with Mickey Mouse?"

Langly turned pink. "It wasn't much of a fight."

Frohike sighed. "I'm going to want to hear the rest of this story later. Right now, we need to get cleaned up."

Byers blinked. "I wasn't going to mention it, but…"

"Peaches," Mel told him shortly, headed for his room.

"Peaches?"

"Yeah." He sighed again. "Honest to goodness Fortean peaches. Falling from the sky. One clunked J. Wayne in the forehead."

"That's… interesting," Byers said oddly.

"You got glass on you," Langly noted. "Window broke?"

"That," Frohike said heavily, "was the pineapple."

Mulder and Jimmy had stopped, J. Wayne swaying between them, and were gazing at a small patch of grass by the stairs. The three Gunmen joined them.

"It's a crop circle," Langly said in awe. "A really small crop circle."

"Technically," Byers observed, "it's a lawn circle."

Frohike knelt and inspected the grass. "More of a moss circle, really."

Jimmy gazed at it, and when he opened his mouth, Langly and Frohike both cringed. "So, like," he said slowly, "these are really tiny aliens?"

Mulder sighed. "Probably not. I think this is a residual effect." He immediately corrected himself. "Just a kind of leftover energy," he explained. "Paranormal phenomena," he glanced at Jimmy again and started over. "It's pretty common to get ghost sightings and poltergeists and that sort of thing in an area of high UFO activity."

"Oh." Jimmy thought about it. "The ghosts of tiny aliens?"

Mulder sighed again. "Sure, if that makes you happy."

Frohike snorted. "Mulder, get the kid inside. I'll get some pictures of this. Byers, you can take some readings, and then we'll measure it. Langly, find us the--" he looked down at the circle and judged its size. "Hell, I dunno. A quarter, or something, for scale."

Mulder snickered. "Let's go with the ruler on that, Fro. It's not _that_ small."

Frohike gave him a fast grin. "I get nervous when you start pulling out rulers, Mulder."

Langly snickered. "Yeah, we heard."

Frohike sighed. "Remind me to give you the number for the line we don't record, okay, Mulder?"

It was Byers' turn to sigh. "Just get the camera."

**

Mel stopped in the bathroom to clean up and made the mistake of looking at the bathtub. He was still there some time later when the door opened.

"Hey, did they eat you?" came Mulder's unaccountably cheerful question.

Frohike pulled his eyes away from the tub. "Mulder?" he said in a strained voice.

"What?"

"Call the manager and tell her we want our pet deposit back."

"Did they escape?"

"They had help," Frohike told him wearily.

There was silence, and then Mulder appeared in the doorway. A brief glance at Frohike's bare chest and he too was staring at the tub. "What the fuck?"

"Did I ever tell you how much I hate this state," Frohike offered in leaden tones.

Mulder leaned over and picked a purple crab out. He held it up and examined it from various angles. "Our friends in dark glasses, you figure?"

"I'd rather assume it was the maid. I can't even imagine the MIB Origami Crab Folding Department."

Mulder snorted. "Your tax dollars at work."

Frohike turned, raising his eyebrows. "Do you know something you're not sharing?"

Mulder shrugged. "Okay, _somebody's_ tax dollars at work." He thought about it. "Probably, anyway."

"Origami crabs," Frohike said conversationally.

Mulder pulled the crab apart and nudged Frohike. "Look, it's got something written in here."

Frohike looked. "This moment of surrealism brought to you by the letter B."

"Four thousand, two hundred, and ninety-two bees…" Mulder repeated. "You want to count?"

Mel shook his head. "I'm just grateful they aren't real bees."

"Shame, though."

"What is?"

"I was getting used to sharing a shower with J. Wayne."

Frohike sighed. "How is he?"

"Sleeping it off," Mulder chuckled.

Frohike raised an eyebrow. "Sleeping what off, Mulder?"

"He's in no condition for anything… athletic."

"I guess not. He okay?"

"He's not concussed, if that's what you're asking. Just bruised and… weirded out. It hit him pretty hard, but at least it wasn't a direct hit."

"I wonder what the terminal airspeed velocity of a peach is."

"African or European?"

Frohike ignored it. "I guess we can be grateful it wasn't a green peach."

"True. If the pineapple'd hit him any harder, we'd be trying to come up with something dignified for his headstone right now."

Frohike glared. "Not funny."

Mulder pitched himself onto the bed. "I suppose not. If you want, we can tell him he's concussed."

Frohike looked at him oddly. "Why would we do that?"

The agent shrugged eloquently. "Make him sleep with us, so we can wake him up every hour."

Mel actually smiled at that. "He's definitely in no condition for it once an hour, Mulder."

"Shame."

Frohike thought everything over, listening to Mulder crunching on a Starlite mint. He glanced up, stuck by something. "You know what's strange?" he said.

"Define 'strange' in this context," Mulder snickered, swallowing.

"There weren't any mints yesterday. Or the day before. I don't think I've _ever_ seen mints in a Motel Six, come to think of it."

Mulder froze, staring at him. "You think it's a big deal?"

"Considering our new paper friends, it concerns me a little, yeah."

Mulder relaxed slowly. "You're just being paranoid. There were a couple in J. Wayne's room, too. They must have just changed the policy."

Mel stood up. "All the same, I'm gonna check on the boys. What'd you do with the ones in the kid's room?"

"Left 'em. I think you're just being paranoid."

Mel shook his head. "You're probably right, but all the same…"

Frohike confiscated the mints from the sleeping J. Wayne and went on to the next room. Langly and Jimmy had already eaten the two in there. He handed Byers the two from the kid's room and instructed him to take a look at them, see what he could find out. Byers shrugged and headed out to the van.

Langly, bored and restless, followed Fro back to his room. "So what's going on?"

Frohike opened the door and stood in the doorway, staring. Mulder was sprawled on the bed, naked except for his glasses and one of Frohike's socks, which he'd used to adorn his penis, much of it flagging limply off the tip. The agent was giggling and singing.

Frohike tried to make out the words, and then wished he hadn't.

"…Here is my handle, and here is my spout!…"

Langly stared over Frohike's shoulder. "Uh." He glanced at the expression on Mel's face, but his gaze was pulled back to the bed. "Is he _always_ like this?"

Frohike sighed, yanking Langly into the room and slamming the door. "No. Well, not usually. I think the mints were drugged." He regarded Mulder a moment longer. "I hope so, anyhow."

"I had one!" Langly started hyperventilating.

Frohike ignored him and went to the bed, pulling Mulder half-upright to peer into his eyes.

"Cutie-Pie!" Mulder giggled.

Mel shook his head. "Forget it, buddy. I don't think you're feeling well."

Mulder landed a wet, open-mouthed kiss on Mel's left ear. "I feel great!" He tried to leer. "But you feel even better!"

Mel turned back to Langly. "You okay? Nothing weird?"

Mulder kept giggling. "I bet he feels great too!"

Langly cleared his throat. "I'm okay. I'll be right back."

The leer dissolved into a sulk. "Where's Blondie going?" Mulder whined.

Langly's eyes bulged briefly. "To get a camera," he announced, and slammed the door again.

Mel's attempts to reclaim his sock were misinterpreted by a laughing Mulder, so he gave up. He managed to get Mulder partly wrapped in the blankets, more to confine him than cover him. It wasn't like Mulder was big on modesty. "Just stay still, Mulder." He hoped whatever it was was going to wear off soon.

The door banged back open and Langly re-entered, followed by Byers, who was carefully looking at the ceiling. "What's wrong?"

"It's okay, Byers. He's covered."

Byers blushed slightly. "What's wrong with him?"

"The mints," Frohike sighed. "Just relax, Mulder." He leaned a little harder on the agent. "I think he's drugged," he told Byers.

"He sure looks fucking stoned," Langly contributed. "But I feel okay. It can't be the mints, man."

Byers moved forward. "Can you get him to hold still? I want to check his eyes."

"Yeah, I'll try. Langly, I could use some help here."

Langly shook his head. "I'm not gettin' anywhere near him."

Byers did what he could and shrugged helplessly at Frohike. "Physically, he seems fine. His pupils are normal, his pulse is okay, he's not flushed or fevered. I don't know what to tell you."

"Mulder, less giggling. We're trying to talk here."

Byers half-smiled. "Langly, please."

The younger man gave in with poor grace and Byers pulled Frohike away into the bathroom, lowering his voice. "Ah, listen, Mel. We could take a blood sample, even get him to a hospital. But are you sure he's not…"

Mel cocked his head. "Not what, Byers? A shapeshifter?"

Byers' eyes widened. "No. I wasn't even thinking that. Look, do you know what Oz Factor is?"

"Lions and tigers and bears, oh my?"

Byers glanced anxiously at the door, perhaps aware he'd left his lover alone with a potential alien clone. "It's just that—sometimes people behave oddly after… encounters. Ri's fine, so it can't have been the mints. Maybe it's just… fatigue? From everything that's happened today? Or, ah, not enough sleep?"

Frohike glared and then sighed. "I guess. Langly's okay, yeah. Did you get a look at the mints?"

"Not yet." A thought occurred to him. "I'll go check on Jimmy. And then we can get a blood sample from Mulder. Mel?"

"Yeah?" Frohike was distracted.

"Why are there origami crabs all over the floor?"

He shook his head. "Because I needed to use the shower. Go check Jimmy."

"You guys better get out here!" Langly hollered.

They pulled a Keystone Cops routine in the doorway to discover Langly, a panicked expression on his face, partly covered by Mulder, who had gotten free of most of the blanket and the sock.

"Fucking _hurry_!" Langly yelped as Mulder nuzzled at his neck. "I think he wants to marry me!"

The two of them tried to pull Mulder off Langly, who squeaked in surprise.

"What?" Mel demanded.

"He's, uh—" Langly went bright red. "He's got hold of me. You know? He's got me?" He looked from one to the other to see if they were getting the message.

Byers coughed, embarrassed, and Frohike stifled a bark of laughter.

"Okay, okay, hold still." Frohike tried stroking Mulder's hair, but it only made the agent more eager to reciprocate.

"Johnny!" Langly whimpered. "Make him stop! Please! Make him stop!"

There was nothing else for it. Mel took a deep breath and gently tried to pry Mulder's hand free.

"Watch what you're grabbin', there, Doohickey!" Langly snapped.

"Do you want me to get him off you or not? Shut up and let me work!"

The adjoining door opened and J. Wayne staggered in, rubbing at his eyes. "What's all the noise?" he asked in a pained voice. He stared at them, eyes going wide. "Uh, sorry." He backed into his room and shut the door with more force than was necessary, falling against it on the other side. Langly's glare would have roasted chestnuts.

" _Do_ something, Johnny!"

Byers nodded. "I'll get the first aid kit." He headed out the door.

"Johnny!" he wailed.

"Hold still, I almost got him."

"You got _me_ , dammit! Let go!"

"Mulder!" Frohike snarled, totally exasperated. The agent let go suddenly, collapsing back into the blankets in fits of giggles. "Jesus Christ."

Langly bolted for the other side of the room where he hunched against the wall. "Fuck, man, is he _always_ like that?"

Mel could only shake his head.

Byers came back, followed by Jimmy.

Langly glared some more. "Great, John, bring Jimmy. That's just what I need, a bigger audience."

Byers blushed, but there was a suspicious quirk to his lips. He suppressed it. "We should probably get a blood sample before we sedate him."

Mel shook his head again, getting his breath back. "Skip it. Get a sample, yeah. But I don't want to give him anything with whatever's already in his system. It's too dangerous, and he's harmless."

Langly objected profanely.

Mel interrupted. "Look, you three go see the Cayces, okay? I'll stay here with them. Go see what you can find out. I'll call if anything happens."

Byers didn't look happy with the solution. "Maybe he should see a doctor. Maybe J. Wayne should, too."

Mel snorted. "Maybe Langly should, too. Look, don't worry about it. J. Wayne's okay, and Mulder doesn't need the paper trail. I'll call if there's a problem."

Mulder started singing again. "I don't need any ugly sweaters and I don't play much basketball!"

Byers raised an eyebrow. "I'd feel better if we left Jimmy here with you, just in case."

"Go on, Byers. I can handle it. He's not going to hurt me." Mel narrowed his eyes. "It's him, you saw the blood yourself."

Byers nodded thoughtfully.

"I want a little green guy about three feet high, with seventeen eyes who knows how to fly! I want an alien for Christmas this year!"

Frohike gazed at Langly. "What the hell is this?"

Langly shrugged, still maintaining a wary distance. "Fountains of Wayne. 'I want an Alien for Christmas'."

Frohike sighed. "Perfect. He'll be fine, Byers."

Byers smiled ruefully. "All right. Is there anything you want us to ask the Cayces, specifically?"

"Find out anything you can about the Men In Black, okay?"

Still singing: "And I'll take him out for walks when it gets nicer in the spring!"

"Shut up, Mulder." A chorus of three.

**

In contrast to Sela Loy's exotic feline looks and Dottie's ditsy maiden auntie patina, Celestiya Delfine Astrelisa Cayce was the kind of woman who dotted her "i"s with nightshade blossoms.

She zeroed in on Jimmy right away. Byers and Langly exchanged somewhat amused glances. Julian Cayce didn't seem to mind. He ignored it and focused on the questions.

"We've been scrambling all day. We have reports of just about everything you can imagine, and a lot you probably can't. Today we sent out six teams to examine Fortean incidents."

Jimmy opened his mouth to say something, and Celestiya stroked his hand. He shut up, squirming a little.

"Let me guess," Langly said. "Fruit."

Julian looked only mildly surprised. "Seen some of it yourself?"

"Not us, personally," Byers commented. "But Frohike and Mulder. Peaches and pineapples, it seems."

Julian consulted a computer. Celestiya took the opportunity to run a finger along Jimmy's cheek. He tried to edge away.

Julian looked up. "We've also had huckleberries, cherries, duku, and guava."

"Duku?" Langly asked.

"That's a stupid word," Jimmy contributed, grinning nervously. "Duku. Duku."

Celestiya patted his hip. "It's like a yellow grape the size of a golf ball. They fell in a half-acre area in Issaquah."

Jimmy managed to put Langly between him and Celestiya. Byers gave him a brief look and turned back to Julian, who was nodding. "They caused some damage."

"No vegetables?" Langly asked, eying Byers. "Just fruit?"

Celestiya slithered around behind Langly, making him tense.

"Just fruit." Julian shrugged. "We've also had Bigfoot sightings."

"Bigfoot is a hoax," Byers sighed.

Julian smiled. "You seem less convinced than you used to be, John."

Byers shook his head. "It's been a long trip."

"Speaking of which, where is Mel?"

"He's busy."

Celestiya moved back to Jimmy's side, to his serious discomfort. "So he's along?"

"Yes, of course. What about the MIB?"

Julian groaned. "They're all over, apparently."

"Intimidating witnesses?"

"Yes, of course. We've had reports of them, and we've had previously cooperative witnesses refuse to talk to us." Julian shook his head. "Our investigators have spotted them, but there's been no contact with them."

"What kind of contacts have you seen?" Byers asked.

"CEs One through Four. A lot of abductions reported by our regulars. Not many new ones, though. The MIB have visited a few of them, so it's safe to assume not all of them are reporting." He shook his head. "As far as sightings go, we can't even keep up."

"Saucers?" Langly asked, still nervously watching Celestiya.

"No. Wedges, mostly. Deltas."

Byers tried to look like he was remembering things. "Boomerangs?"

"Yes."

"That's unusual," Byers suggested.

"Not really. We're seeing a lot of them. I think they may be connected with the MIB. Saucer sightings don't usually prompt MIB visits."

"Johnny!" Langly said in a strangled voice. "We gotta go. Remember that thing we have to do?"

Byers stared at him, seeing panic in his eyes again. He relented and glanced at his watch. "You're right. We need to be going." He turned to Julian while Langly scrambled away in a hurry.

"What thing—" Jimmy started, puzzled. "Ouch!"

"I seem to have _accidentally_ stepped on your foot just now, Jimmy. I'll _try not to do it again_." Langly mugged furiously at him.

"Uh, okay…" Jimmy hesitated.

"We'll call you later," Byers told Julian and Celestiya. "Thank you for the information."

They hurried out. Once in the car, Byers turned to Langly. "What was that about?"

"She put her hand in my jeans, Johnny."

"Oh."

"I thought she liked me," Jimmy commented.

"I don't think she's picky," Langly said heavily.

"She didn't hit on me."

"So she's _crazy_ , too."

**

They headed out for dinner, Mulder recovered but a bit wan.

J. Wayne had declined to come, still looking tired and a little dazed. He'd managed to sleep through Mulder's singing and various advances on Fro's body (and a chair, the table, and the bathroom sink). After a couple of hours, he'd wound down and fallen asleep, waking with a headache and no memory.

Frohike had elected not to explain, but Mulder probably wasn't going to be put off forever.

As they ate, they exchanged notes. Frohike insisted on an explanation of the Mickey Mouse incident, Byers wanted to know about the samples. Byers and Langly tried to explain about the possibly-chupacabra.

Mulder was unimpressed. "Probably a mountain lion."

"We have pictures!" Jimmy said defensively.

Byers sighed. "Well, we sort of don't have pictures," he said, handing over the camera.

Mulder pecked around and then stopped. "Oh my God." He picked his jaw up off the table while the others stared. "One of you guys has really filthy fingernails. I hope you washed your hands before you came to dinner."

Langly glared. "It wasn't a fucking mountain lion, Mulder. I got a real close look at the thing."

"Between fainting spells," Frohike snickered.

Byers held his hands out for peace. "He's right, it wasn't a mountain lion. It wasn't a bear, it wasn't some kind of zombie elk." He sighed. "Unfortunately, it's not a story, either, because those photos of Jimmy's fingers and the testimony of a couple of Bigfoot hunters and a man in a hopefully platonic relationship with a show goat are our only evidence. And yes, we washed our hands."

Frohike raised an eyebrow. "A show goat?"

Jimmy explained about the missing goat. (She'd been so relieved she stuck her nose in Langly's crotch and drooled. Langly wasn't amused, and Spratt looked like she wanted to follow suit. They'd departed hastily.)

"All right, whatever. Write a report for the files, and we'll drop it." Frohike went on to narrate the fruit story for Langly, who explained what the Cayces had said. He described Celestiya's attentions, which were obviously eating at him, the way he glared at Mulder.

"What'd _I_ do?" Mulder demanded.

This seemingly innocent question caused a torrent of snickering and snorting from his tablemates. Langly threw his fork on the table and stood up, shaking his finger at Mulder. "You keep your hands _off_ the joystick!" He stalked away.

Byers stood up. "I'll go talk to him," he said in a suspiciously shaky voice. "You'd better explain, Fro."

There was silence for a few moments. Frohike cleared his throat. "Uh, the mints?"

"There was something weird about them, wasn't there."

"Well, about the ones you ate, I guess. You, uh, hit on Langly."

Mulder stared. "Langly?" he choked out.

"Uh, yeah. Kind of, uh, physically. You know? _Physically_?"

Mulder went beet red. "I did _what_?"

"Look, Mulder, you grabbed him, okay?"

"I don't remember that."

Frohike glared briefly at Jimmy, who was snickering. "Well, you did. J. Wayne walked in on it. You were, kinda, naked."

"And singing," Jimmy managed.

Mulder swallowed a few times. " _Kinda_ naked, Fro?"

"You were, uh, wearing one of my socks."

" _Wearing_?"

"Kinda. Look," he snapped at Bond. "Just shut up, okay? It's not funny."

Jimmy stifled giggles. "It was, really."

Frohike sighed, watching Mulder intently. "Yeah, okay. Actually, it was. But you'd better apologize to Langly."

The apology, when they came back, was received with a frosty look. Mulder, trying to make amends, offered to buy Langly a beer.

Langly's response was cool. "Trying to get me drunk so you can take advantage of me?"

"Ringo," Byers warned.

Mulder sighed.

Langly relented. "Listen, just don't do it again, okay?"

"Well, well," said a familiar voice. "The gang's all here."

"Josh, Chuck," Byers said without too much surprise. "Pete, isn't it?"

Dodden nodded.

"What do you guys want?" Langly demanded, easily transferring his hostility.

Mulder and Frohike exchanged uncomfortable glances.

Allen yanked a chair towards the table while glaring at the agent. "Turns out somebody owes us dinner."

"A deal's a deal," Frohike protested.

"Checkers, Mel?" Rosenberg was trying not to grin.

"We didn't take the pics," Mel said defensively.

"I didn't think so," Rosenberg smiled. "Somebody dumped them on you?"

Mel gave in, chuckling. "Just passing the favor along."

"What pictures?" Langly asked.

"Uh, don't got 'em." Allen looked sheepish. "We, uh, passed 'em along to _Rainbow_."

Mulder snorted into his beer. "Tasche?"

"No. Len's not here. Yet," Allen grinned. "We gave 'em to Tuperan."

Mulder looked relieved. "What'd you get for them?"

"None of your business," Allen informed him loftily. "I expected to see Scully tonight."

"She was looking forward to seeing you, too, Allen," Mulder deadpanned. "But she got abducted this morning."

They looked startled. "Grays or Nordics?" Allen demanded.

"Republican Women's Coalition," Mulder said. Everybody relaxed and Mulder snickered. "They're trying to brainwash her."

Allen laughed at that. "They don't stand a chance in hell."

Mel tossed a folder on the table. "Here, a freebie."

They regarded him skeptically. Rosenberg took it carefully and opened it. Eyes screwed closed, he handed them to Dodden.

Dodden took a brief look and passed them to Allen. "Don't get your hopes up. Noctilucent cloud."

The Gunmen grinned at each other while Jimmy looked blank.

Allen threw down the stack of photos. "Okay, fine. What the hell is a noctilucent cloud?"

Dodden shrugged apologetically. "A high altitude cloud catching the sun's rays—"

"There's no sun in these pictures!" Allen objected. "The goddamned things are time stamped 21:43."

Dodden sighed. "Look, the earth is round, right? You've got a horizon, and when the sun goes under the horizon, we call that a sunset. But it doesn't actually _go_ anywhere. It's still there, and if the clouds are far enough away from you, and there are hills that raise your horizon, you may not be able to see the sun, but it's still got line-of-ray to the cloud, okay?"

"I'm starting to not like you very much, Pete."

**

After dinner, they headed back to the motel to look at the samples Frohike and J. Wayne had gathered. Langly snatched the digital camera and retreated to the other side of the room to look at them.

Mulder sighed. "I said I was sorry!"

Frohike patted him on the shoulder. "Just let it go, Mulder." He went to the adjoining door and knocked quietly. "J. Wayne?"

After a while, the kid came to the door. He looked rumpled, and his forehead had bruised a nasty yellow. His neck was obviously still sore.

"You okay?"

J. Wayne rubbed his temple. "Yeah, I guess so. Is, uh, did you need something?" He gazed around the room and apparently saw nothing to alarm him.

"We brought you dinner. One of those veggie burger things. You up to talking?"

"Yeah, okay. In a few minutes." He closed the door silently.

Mulder glanced at Frohike. "Did you tell him about the crabs?"

Frohike rolled his eyes. "Somehow, Mulder, it slipped my mind."

Byers grabbed some sample jars and sat down with the microscope and tweezers.

"What the fuck is this?" Langly demanded.

"Alien goo," Frohike said.

Langly shook his head. "That's what you said it was supposed to be, but this doesn't look alien."

Frohike went over and looked. "Goddammit," he said. "This is _not_ what we took pictures of. J. Wayne, get your ass in here!"

The young man came in, looking pale and worried. Frohike snarled at him. "These pictures—Someone screwed with the camera. Look!" He thrust the camera at J. Wayne. "This is _not_ what we found on the beach."

J. Wayne looked closely. "No, it's not. These pictures are of—"

"Strawberry ice cream," said Byers, looking up and focusing at them with rapid blinks. "Right? Just like these samples."

"What!" It could've been any one of them—or all of them. Mulder thumped his head against the wall behind him, and Langly sat up abruptly. J. Wayne nodded, still staring at the pictures. Frohike slapped his forehead. And Jimmy started laughing.

"Well, _that's_ weird," he said.

Mulder glared. "You guys brought Marilyn Vos Savant here, you can explain it to him. I need a drink."

"Settle down, Mulder," Frohike said flatly. "Byers? You wanna explain?"

Byers glanced at Mulder. "Ah, sure. There was a famous story, well, it was a film, about an alien—"

Mulder interrupted. "The government was supposed to be holding an alien. The alien was supposed to like certain Earth foods, particularly strawberry ice cream. Some idiot made a movie out of this story, which was totally untrue." He took a deep breath. "Somebody dubbed the whole incident the Strawberry Ice Cream Show, and now UFOlogists use the phrase to make fun of people who fall for hoaxes."

Jimmy nodded, forehead wrinkled. "So somebody…"

"Broke in and replaced our alien samples with melted strawberry ice cream," finished Frohike. "Somebody with a nasty sense of humor. The same somebodies who replaced the crabs in the bathtub with paper ones. And the same somebodies who left the mints."

Langly nodded. "The Men in Black."

"It's a good bet, yeah. So all we have left is the metal and the original pictures."

Byers looked appalled. "I hope this room isn't bugged."

Frohike sighed. "It doesn't seem to matter. These guys have been four steps ahead of us the whole time."

They sat like that for a while, breaking out of various reveries only when the phone rang.

"Mr. Frohike," came the familiar voice. "It's Sela Loy."

He gazed at J. Wayne. "Yes, Ms. Loy?"

"I have a tip for you, but you'll have to hurry."

**

"Scully, I need you."

"I'm not falling for that one again, Mulder."

"No, seriously, just listen. I'm standing in a Wal-Mart in the middle of Washington State, where we've just watched four hundred plus oranges spontaneously combust."

There was a moment of silence. "Oranges," she repeated. "What happened to the pineapple?"

"This is different."

"Spontaneous orange combustion."

"Yes." Mulder nodded in his sincerity, but it was wasted on Scully.

She was silent for a much longer moment. "Mulder, you need _something_ , but I don't see why I have to go out there. I can call in a prescription for antipsychotics for you from here."

"Listen, I've got a store full of witnesses."

"Wal-Mart customers."

"It's not like they've got webbed toes or anything."

"Webbed toes are rare. You're telling me your witnesses are a store full of Wal-Mart customers who are shopping barefoot."

"I didn't say that. Anyway, we all saw it. Not just the natives."

He could hear the suspicion down the line. "Are the Three Stooges there with you, Mulder?"

"Yeah…"

"And they saw this happen?"

"Yeah. We all did."

"I can phone in prescriptions for them, too."

"C'mon, Scully, this is serious. A huge pile of oranges has just incinerated itself."

"Mulder, what do you know about compost?"

"Shit."

"Compost, not manure. It can get pretty hot in the middle of a pile of decaying vegetable matter."

"The oranges were fresh."

"In a Wal-Mart?"

Her skepticism gave him pause but he rallied gamely. "Delivered this morning."

"They start to decay the instant they're picked, and orange peels contain volatile oils that could catch on fire under the right circumstances."

"Scully, there isn't so much as a pip left here, but no evidence of flames on the bin or anything else."

"Have a _lovely_ vacation, Mulder," she said, hanging up.

Mulder glanced up at the Gunmen, who were trying very hard not to snicker. "Well, she's not coming," he said.

"You should have told her she was the only person who could save innocent produce from immolation."

"Fuck you, Langly," Mulder retorted good-naturedly.

"Don't even think about it," Frohike advised both of them.

Byers shook his head.

**

"So what'd you bring," Mulder asked, inspecting the DVD player back in the hotel room.

"I'm not sure you deserve it after what you tried with Langly."

Mulder twitched. "I… I'm glad I don't remember it," he said at last.

"Well, I guess you've been punished enough," Fro commented. He dug through his bag and tossed a box at Mulder. "Here. I've been saving it."

" _Lust in Space_. This is a classic. We should invite the kid over."

"Haven't you had enough of that today?"

"Well, he's no Langly, but…" Mulder grinned. "Hey, did you explain…?"

"Yeah. I'm not sure he believed it."

"There's something already in here," Mulder frowned. He hit eject. " _Fuckaroo Bonzai_. Is this yours?"

"Nope. Maybe it's J. Wayne's."

"He's got excellent taste. Now _this_ is a classic."

"Claymation doesn't do it for me."

"You have to see this." Mulder pushed it back in.

The video started.

"That's not right." Mulder stood back. "Weird."

"Elvis impersonators?" Frohike asked.

"Not very good ones, either. They're lip-synching."

"They're also Korean girls, Mulder."

Mulder looked closer. "You're right. Maybe Cambodian."

"Lip-synching. 'Clambake', of course."

"They're a half-second behind."

"Of course they are. This is just weird."

"Maybe it's the MIB again."

"MIB Elvis impersonators?"

"No, no. Maybe the MIB left the DVD."

Frohike thought about it. "I guess that makes sense. Unless J. Wayne is into a very weird scene."

The girls hit their stride on the chorus. "Mama's little baby loves clambake, clambake…" The lead singer waggled her hips. "Mama's little baby loves clambake too!"

The crowd cheered themselves hoarse. The film zoomed in on one of the speakers, which said, in flowery print, "Suspicious Mimes".

"That's about perfect," Frohike said, rolling over. "I give up."

"I've got this feeling to be free!"

"Shut up, Mulder."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Up: Caffeine, Conspiracies, and the Fortean Nature of Fishes XI: Killer Korn from Outer Space: In which everyone has a lot more fun with crop glyphs than Mel Gibson ever did, and the author has a lot more fun with several fine Seattle institutions than is narratively justifiable, while Pete continues to suck the fun out of some sightings.


	11. Killer Korn from Outer Space

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If You Plant It, They Will Come.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last actually finished part of this. There's another chapter which is basically written but which I have some issues with the tone and length of, and a few more chapters which are at least partly written, including the heading-home wrap-up bits. I started this before I started getting chronic daily migraine, which basically means I've spent the last seven or so years of my life with a migraine during all or part of nearly every day. If you can imagine, it's like trying to do everything with a severe hangover, and it's not especially conducive to concentrating. Also, I no longer have my much-missed and fabulous beta, The Rather Fetching Betty, who was beside me every step of the way for these chapters and almost everything else I've written. I've also fallen out of touch with the circle of brilliant and crazy people who offered advice and expertise. My fanfic career is basically a condemned building no one wants into anymore. That said, I'll probably end up posting the next chapter, tone issues or no, anyway. This really is one of the best and funniest things I've ever written on any subject, and I'm grateful if someone other than me has gotten some chuckles. 
> 
> If you've made it this far, be aware that the boys were always meant to all make it home safely, with no incontrovertible proof of anything unusual happening, and with almost no changes in their lives, except that Jimmy and Yves were likely to get together. I also meant to to give them my OC J. Wayne, because Mulder and Frohike would have liked him in full drag and because the boys could always have used a little extra cash. It doesn't matter though. Whether I write it eventually or not, everything ends happily for everybody.
> 
> My apologies to the local drive in restaurant, which is undoubtedly sick to death of the jokes. Ditto to the local flooring company. My apologies also to university and law enforcement personnel alike, who are all overworked, underpaid, and definitely don't deserve to be associated with me in any way. Equipment mentioned is real, magazines and bakeries are not (with the exception of _The Stranger_ , which is currently edited by Dan Savage, of whom you may have heard).
> 
> UGM stands for Unusual Ground Markings, which is kind of a broad catchall for crop circles (or any designs of that nature in vegetation), geoglyphs (markings on the ground), petroglyphs (markings on rocks), and anywhere else they turn up. It falls into the amazingly-stupid category, but basically, the same design is called something different depending where it turns up, and advocates of the theory that Intraterrestrials are cutting mandalas into stones with their psychic powers will mock those who believe that extraterrestrials are landing in wheat fields and leaving "saucer nests". It's not unreasonable to assume that each theorist disses the work of the others because they cut into his share of the alarmingly lucrative book-and-lecture market, but it doesn't explain why cerealogists fail to co-opt geoglyphs as crop circles that landed somewhere else. In any event, the guys would all know what a UGM is, having been through various files and discussions by now, so nobody will explain it for you unless I do it here. Regardless of where they appear, UGMs all seem to fall into a few categories: swirls, runes, mandelbrots, geometrics, celestials, insectograms, etc. They're recognizable largely by basic design and distinguished entirely by location. While we're at it, NVG stands for Night Vision Goggles. The rest of it you'll probably have to work out for yourself, because I'm mean that way.
> 
> So keeping in mind how long ago this was written, the Trump jokes I made way back when are a little crazier suddenly and pot is now legal in my state which blows something of a hole in what plot I had.
> 
> Spoilers: Brief jokes from or mentions of elements from XF: _Fight The Future_ , XF: "Wetwired", LGM: "Maximum Byers", LGM: "Bond, Jimmy Bond", and, uh, _Ghostbusters_ , the original movie. I don't think there are any actual spoilers, though the _Ghostbusters_ thing is kind of a plot point, but if you still haven't seen a blockbuster from 1984, I think we can assume you don't intend to, and get on with our lives.

Mulder woke up when Frohike punched him in the shoulder, hard. "Ow! Fuck!"

"Not on your life, you bastard."

Mulder blinked. The older man sounded genuinely pissed, which seemed unfair considering the last thing Mulder remembered, which should've been enough to make anybody happy. In fact, he was feeling like a rematch might be in order, if he could get Frohike to stop hitting him, or at least aim more carefully. "Ow! Dammit!"

"And don't even think about trying the pout on me."

Mulder ducked the next blow. "For God's sake, Fro, ease off. What time is it?"

"Early enough to see. Jesus, Mulder, you just get weirder by the fucking day, don't you."

He opened his mouth to protest, and then shrugged. "Probably," he admitted mildly. "You didn't complain much last night."

"I assumed," Frohike said with disgust, "that you had the common decency to wake me up before you tried anything."

Mulder's jaw dropped. He closed it with an effort and made a grab for Frohike. "Whoa. I think the conversation just lapped me. What the hell are you talking about?"

"Oh, no. You're not weaseling out of this one—" Frohike pulled away, wrapping the blanket more firmly around himself, and consequently yanking it off Mulder. His voice faltered and he stared.

Mulder wasn't accustomed to _quite_ that reaction, and followed his gaze. "Uh." He rapidly put two and two together. "I take it you didn't do that."

"No," Frohike said weakly. He pushed the blanket off himself. "I thought you did it to me."

They regarded each other, a network of suspiciously familiar lines across most of their bare bodies. 

Mulder rubbed at a straw yellow line on his chest and thought about it for a few moments longer. "Either J. Wayne is into a _really_ weird scene…"

Frohike sighed, idly tracing the green swirls on his leg. "Doesn't seem too likely. I don't suppose you've taken up sleep, uh, drawing?"

"Not that I'm aware of. Crop circles? That's just weird."

"You can see why I immediately thought of you."

"That's weird even for me, Fro."

"Mulder," the Gunman said explosively. "How the hell did someone get in here and do-- _this_ \--without waking us up? And don't say we were tired, because we're both way too paranoid to get caught out like that."

Mulder shook his head. "You know the answer to that as well as I do."

Frohike buried his face in his hands. "Yeah, but I was hoping you'd lie to me. Okay, we'd better get dressed. You check out the trace, I'll go make sure the boys are okay. But, look, if they put the crabs back in the tub, we're just packing up and never coming back to this godforsaken state, you hear me?"

Mulder swung his legs over the side of the bed and stepped on something. It made a popping noise. "Oh, fuck."

"Not the crabs, Mulder. Please, no more crabs."

"Ping pong ball," Mulder said with dawning dismay. He sprinted for the door and the car.

" _Clothes_ , Mulder!"

It pulled him up short, to Frohike's relief. Skinner would not be amused by an arrest record for indecent exposure. Especially not such a decorative one. 

There was an urgent knock on the adjoining door. Frohike waited till Mulder had put on pants before opening it. 

No need to ask. Jimmy and J. Wayne stood there in much the same state of partial dress, displaying similar markings, this time in gray and brown.

Frohike sighed. "I suppose you guys slept through it too?"

J. Wayne nodded, turning slightly pink, and tried not to look at Mulder. "We wondered…"

Jimmy, behind him, was less successful at avoiding staring at Mulder, though he made an effort. "We thought maybe—uh, you guys did it."

"Everybody put some clothes on," Frohike instructed resignedly. "Byers and Langly will be here any minute demanding to know what the hell is going on. With any luck, they'll get dressed first."

**

In retrospect it should have been obvious, but in fact nobody had noticed until Jimmy commented on it. The bruise on J. Wayne's forehead had disappeared overnight, as well as, it turned out, the lump on the back of his neck, and the burn on Frohike's arm. 

Even Mulder had been healed of some unspecified mark that left Frohike smirking and J. Wayne openly thoughtful. 

They were taking an unenthusiastic inventory of the evidence they had left when someone pounded on their door, followed by the muffled sound of Byers saying "I'm sure there's… an explanation…"

Mulder put down a canister that seemed to still hold strawberry goo, and opened the door. "It's not a good one. Come on in, boys."

Byers entered, but Langly seemed content to stand in the doorway until Byers grabbed him by the wrist and pulled him in. "Calm down. It looks like something happened here, too."

Not the least reassured, Langly sidled away and hunched by the wall, as far away from Mulder as he could get. 

Byers sighed. "You said there was an explanation?"

Frohike stepped through the connecting door with a sour expression. "Sit. Tell us."

Byers blushed slightly and glanced at Langly, who didn't look at all interested in jumping in. He settled carefully on the edge of the bed and gazed at the ceiling. "Langly… woke up first, and… It looks like someone broke into our room in the night. I don't know how. We didn't wake up at all. And it was definitely while we were there. They, ah…" his voice trailed off.

"Drew UGMs on you with Sharpie," Mulder said flatly, pushing up a sleeve to display yellow swirls.

Byers turned bright red and nodded. "Uh, yes. More or less. Not yellow, though. He got blue and I got black."

Langly made an unhappy noise from his position against the wall. 

"Relax, kid," Frohike told him. "They got all of us." He moved closer to Langly. "Looks like your shiner is gone, though."

Byers nodded again. "It doesn't make any sense." He looked around. "But I suppose you already know that part. You'd better tell them the rest, Langly."

Frohike glared at Langly. "What else?"

Langly shook his head. "This is all just too weird."

Frohike turned his glare on Byers, noticing his tie was uneven. The whole thing seemed to be getting to everybody. "Tell me," he said firmly.

Byers sighed. "All right. The mouse… who attacked… Langly…" there were nods of agreement from all but J. Wayne, who hadn't heard about it yet. "It—he--left a… toy…"

Frohike perched on the table next to Mulder. "Spit it out, Byers."

Byers took another run at it. "Whoever it was, left a cow-in-a-can toy on Langly's chest after knocking him out." He shrugged. "It was in the bus last night, I know we didn't bring it in with us. It's not in the bus anymore, and it wasn't in the room, but… This was." He stood up and put something on the table.

Mulder picked it up and inspected it, flipping it over. 

" _Baaaaaaaa-aaaaaa-aaaaaaa-aaaa…_ "

Everyone jumped but Byers, who was ready for it. He shrugged. "It's a sheep-in-a-can."

Jimmy looked at it as if it might levitate. "What happened to the cow?"

"Maybe they mutilated it," Langly sniped, but it lacked force.

Byers shook his head. "They traded it, I suppose."

"They who?" Jimmy asked.

Frohike looked at Byers, and past him to Langly. Neither of them seemed particularly surprised or puzzled just now. They met his gaze steadily, and the three of them turned to look at Mulder, who had a disenchanted quirk to his mouth. 

"Who else," Mulder said airily. "Our sharp-dressing pals."

Jimmy was still clueless, to Langly's irritation. "Who?"

"The Men In Black, you big dope."

"Oh! But why—"

"Why the hell not?" Langly snapped.

"Knock it off or I'll put you in separate corners," Frohike said without heat. "Anything else in your room, or the bus?"

Byers shook his head. "Not that we noticed, but we didn't do a complete inspection. We wanted… We thought… maybe…"

"Why the hell does everyone keep looking at me?" Mulder demanded.

There were a few smirks as they pointedly didn't look at him for a few moments.

Byers scanned the room again. "All of us?" he asked plaintively.

"Yup," Frohike nodded. "Pretty thorough job."

"You might as well tell us everything, then." 

Frohike glanced at Langly, who didn't look like he was anxious to move. "C'mon," he said to Byers. "It's in the bathroom, in here." A thought struck him. "Where was the sheep thing?"

"The… mouse… left the cow thing on his chest, after he was on the ground. They seem to have done the same thing here. Which means—"

"Which means they didn't expect him to roll over for the rest of the night," Frohike mused quietly. He stepped out of the way and gestured. "And with Langly—"

Byers nodded. "That's pretty unlikely. But he didn't." 

Frohike started to ask something when Byers interrupted him. "Where are the crabs? The origami?"

"I think that's them."

Byers knelt next to the bathtub and reached in, sifting out a handful of half-inch diameter paper cutouts in the shape of, what else, crabs. They were all purple on one side and white on the other, though some of them had black marks on the white side. About half of them were creased. 

"I suppose so," Byers murmured. "This must have taken a long time."

Frohike nodded. "Too late for blood samples?"

Byers looked up at him speculatively. "Gas under the door?"

"Seems likely."

The younger man brushed the paper crabs off his hands and stood up. "I don't know. Ringo is… acting strangely, but he has been for a couple of days. This hasn't been a normal trip. How do you feel, Mel? Dizzy? Sick? Tired? Headache?"

Frohike shook his head and turned to leave. "No to all of the above. Pretty much the opposite. Even J. Wayne looks like he might live, and after yesterday I wasn't sure. You?"

"The same." He blushed again and Frohike smiled in lazy remembrance.

"It was shaping up to be a good morning before I saw the marks."

Byers shaded a darker red and did what he could not to meet the other man's eyes.

Frohike patted him sympathetically on the back. "Let's try anyhow. But there's more in the other room, Byers, and the car."

"More confetti?"

"Nothing so conventional. There were some ping pong balls scattered around the bed this morning. From the ones we collected for prints. Mulder went out to check on them, they'd been in the trunk of the rental."

"No longer?"

"Replaced with garbage bags of cotton balls. No, I don't know why."

"Well, it will make printing undeniably more difficult. I suppose you might get DNA, though it seems unlikely it would match any records."

"True. But the real weirdness is in their room."

"You'd better show me, I suppose. And then we'll start taking samples. And," he sighed, "taking pictures."

Jimmy caught the last word. "Pictures? Of us? The drawings?"

Langly straightened up fast enough to slam his head against the wall. "No way. No fucking way. No fucking pictures," he announced. "I am not an X-File, okay? No. Fucking. Way."

Byers considered arguing but a better option presented itself. "Take it up with Mulder," he suggested, and went into the next room with Frohike on his heels. 

"Johnny!" floated through the open door before Frohike shut it, grinning.

"Sounds like he's feeling better. It's over here."

Byers stared. "Why…?"

Frohike shrugged. "As our young friend put it, why the hell not?"

Byers gave him a faint smile. "You don't seem especially put out at the thought of becoming an X-File."

"Hey, you know me. Anything to further the cause of science…"

"I _do_ know you. It's not so much the science as the likelihood Scully will be looking at the pictures."

That got an actual chuckle. Not much of one, but the first of the day. Frohike shrugged. "Anonymously, John. We're not fools. And anyhow, half the files in that rathole are John Does."

Byers' attention was dragged back to the bathroom counter. "What are these again? Langly would know, I imagine."

"Hostess Sno Balls, Jimmy said."

He moved in to get a closer look. "Any idea why our friends would build a pyramid out of… pink snack cakes?"

Frohike shrugged. "Your guess is probably as good as mine. Better, really, since I don't have one."

Byers sighed again. "I don't, either. It doesn't seem any more unusual than anything else they've done, really. The crabs almost make a sort of sense, but this is… odd. How are they held together?"

"No idea. We didn't touch it."

"It reminds me of one of Ringo's songs, somehow." Byers gave it a last look. "Is that all?"

"So far." Frohike hesitated. "Your tie's crooked, you know that?"

Byers winced, his hands flying to his neck. "It's been a strange morning." 

The older Gunman couldn't resist batting his hands out of the way and straightening the tie himself, patting Byers on the cheek like a mother hen. "Can't have you going around looking like a slob. Makes me think the world's about to end."

Byers smiled wanly and the two of them rejoined the others. 

"Okay," Frohike said, taking charge again. "Let's get some Do Not Disturb signs on these doors. We don't want anything moved just yet. Since nobody heard anything--? Okay. I think we have to assume our buddies slipped some kind of knockout gas under the doors to pull this off. So Byers is gonna get some samples from us—Yeah?"

Byers was looking thoughtful. "If that's what happened, and I see no reason to think otherwise, the rooms should have been saturated. Not just us. Things like wood and cloth might retain traces longer, especially the area just around the doorframe."

"We'll leave it up to you, Mr. Wizard. Langly can start getting pictures, and after that, Jimmy, you can get the paper crabs out of the bathtub in there. I know there are gloves and garbage bags in the van, Byers can tell you where." He held up a finger. " _After_ Langly and Byers say it's okay, got it? Until then, you touch nothing."

Jimmy nodded.

"J. Wayne, you're with me, and we'll get some readings, and then we can take apart the cake thing. Mulder, you can, I dunno, do whatever the fuck it is you do with X-Files aside from wasting government money, sit here and feel the Zen of the weirdness or whatever."

Mulder actually grinned. "I should have known you wouldn't respect me after last night."

Frohike smiled as senses of humor reasserted themselves. "Believe me, Mulder, nobody here wants details."

"Excuse me." J. Wayne spoke up. 

Frohike swallowed a sigh and tried to head off what he knew was coming. "Well, okay, he might want details." He leered half-heartedly, but J. Wayne didn't seem to have been paying attention.

"What?" It startled him, but he dismissed it. "I was just thinking… Maybe…" The kid looked unhappy, but prepared to face up to things. "I think we need to discuss…" He took a breath and glanced around. "Calling it off. Going home. This isn't what you signed on for, any of you. If they can get into our rooms while we're asleep, they can do anything, really. And I don't like that people are getting hurt." He glanced at Langly. "I didn't know some…thing had attacked you. I didn't mean to get you into this, any of you. So… I'll pay you for your time and expenses, and I'll get you plane tickets, and…" He shrugged. "I'm sorry. I'm really sorry for dragging you out here."

There was a long silence, and then Byers shifted. "Well," he said in his brightest tone, the one he used to keep the other Gunmen from saying something particularly regrettable after a painfully dim suggestion by Jimmy. "That's certainly something to—"

"The hell you say." Langly interrupted, glaring at him first, then Jimmy, then finally settling on J. Wayne. "You want to get us out of here so you can scoop us? Do we look stupid? After all this? After I put up with mice and naked crazy cults and blue things and fishgoats and shit? No fucking way. There's something going on out here, and I wanna know what it is. Nobody's scooping us. Not after I drive through four states full of _cows_."

The kid looked stunned at this interpretation, and Frohike laughed. "J. Wayne, knock off the noble shit. Sure, this is a little more active than some of our stories, but it's nowhere near the most dangerous. I think we can look after ourselves."

Byers nodded, serious now. "With the amount of activity in this area, there must be something happening. I'd very much like to get to the bottom of it."

"Besides," Jimmy put in, "this is kinda fun. I mean, it's weird and all, but fun."

Langly rolled his eyes at Jimmy's grin. 

J. Wayne looked to Mulder, who smiled charmingly. "Hey, count me in. If I don't come back with something to justify this trip, Skinner'll stuff me into an even deeper basement."

"If not chain you in a dungeon," Frohike noted dryly.

"I don't think the FBI actually has one of those…" But the agent appeared to be contemplating it with rather more glee than was necessary.

Langly snickered. "J. Edgar Hoover, Mulder. Clyde Tolson."

Mulder laughed. "Let's get to work, then, boys."

***

Langly snagged Frohike. "What's weird about this?" he asked, gesturing to the Sno Ball pyramid.

Frohike sighed. "Gonna have to give me more to go on. What's _not_ weird about it?"

"Well," Langly said slowly, "for starters, they're pink. And they only sell the pink ones around Valentine's Day. And it's July. So, why are they fresh?"

Frohike shrugged. "I hear the shelf life of a Twinkie is—"

"Less than a month," Langly interrupted him. "Journalists shouldn't repeat urban legends."

Frohike smiled and held up his hands in apology. "Okay, okay. What's your theory?"

"I don't have one. It's just weird, that's all."

"True. Are they stuck together with toothpicks or something?"

Langly shook his head. "I think it might be wires."

"Did you try to take it apart?"

"No… But when I touched the top one to see if it was stale or something, I got zapped."

Frohike glared. "What the hell do you mean, zapped?"

Langly blinked in surprise. "Just, like, static electricity. No big deal, I just think there might be metal holding them together."

"C'mon, Langly, what are you, stupid? There's weird shit going on and we don't know what the hell could happen!"

Byers hurried in. "Guys, guys. What's wrong?"

Langly shrugged. "Ask him. I got a static shock, and he's freaking."

Byers turned to Frohike with a raised eyebrow. 

"Look, we don't know what the hell is going on here. And yeah, maybe he just got a shock from touching the cake thing. But with everything else, it might be worth making sure that's all it is, okay? So show me your damned hand, Ringo."

Byers nodded at Langly. "That's certainly reasonable."

By now nearly everybody had gathered to see what was going on. Displeased with the audience, Langly sighed and stuck his hand out. "Whatever." 

"Where?" Frohike insisted, and he pointed mutely to a fingertip. 

Byers leaned in for a close look. "I don't see anything."

"Me either," Frohike admitted grudgingly. "But if he sticks a colander on his head and starts talking about being the Keymaster, I want to know right away."

The subsequent snickers were mostly glared down by Langly, but it wasn't the sort of thing that worked on Mulder.

"Would that make Byers the Gatekeeper?" he leered.

Langly sighed as Byers blushed. "Fuck you, Mulder."

Mulder just laughed.

Frohike shook his head. "Keep it up and I'll send you to your rooms, kids," he said absently, waving his hands around the pyramid. "Byers, did we bring the gauss meter?"

"Yes." Byers sounded surprised at the question. "I wasn't sure we'd need it, but it doesn't take very much space, so I left it. Why…?"

"I'm curious."

Byers shrugged and left the room, returning moments later with a small white box. 

"I think it's wires in there, not magnets," Langly pointed out, puzzled. "And there couldn't be enough metal to create a measurable field."

"Well, let's just see." Frohike played with a couple of switches and dials, and moved the box around the three-sided construction. "Hmm. Since I don't think these Sno Ball things are magnetic, let's find out what's going on here."

Langly leaned over his shoulder. "Weird."

"Well?" Mulder demanded.

Frohike shrugged. "It's a little less than three thousand gauss."

"Which means?"

"Put it this way, Mulder. The Earth's magnetic field is about half a gauss nowadays."

"Okaaay….?"

Frohike sighed. "It's a pile of junk food, Mulder. It probably shouldn't have a magnetic field at all."

Langly smirked briefly. "Iron fortified. And you always say there's no nutritional value in this stuff."

"Wait, guys…" Jimmy said, and everyone winced. "Are you sayin' we could stick stuff onto that thing? Like paperclips and stuff?"

J. Wayne shook his head. "I wouldn't think so. Gauss isn't really the same thing as pull." He glanced at Jimmy. "It's complicated. But the bigger question is, what's in there?"

Frohike's head snapped around. "You think it's hollow?"

"Unless the Sno Balls are causing the effect, it seems like a safe guess."

The three Gunmen looked at each other for a few moments. 

"The kid's got a point."

"So let's find out already," Langly said impatiently.

Byers grabbed his hand as he reached toward it. "Gloves this time, I think."

"Why bother? He's already the Keymaster."

"Fuck you, Mulder."

Even with the gloves on, Langly got zapped a second time, which left Frohike worried and Mulder thoughtful. 

"They're only latex, Mel," Byers said reasonably. "I wasn't sure they'd work anyway."

"You're going to make a lovely Sigourney Weaver, you know that?"

Byers smiled faintly. "It's not likely to be the strangest thing to happen this trip."

Frohike shook his head and gestured to Langly to get on with it.

The first cake came off the top without incident and with a scattering of pink coconut flakes. 

"Hmm," Frohike said noncommittally. No wires or toothpicks to be seen. It had just been resting on a triangle of three other round cakes. Those three rested lightly on a triangular layer of another six. As soon as they came off, however, the whole thing collapsed in on itself in a pink cloud.

"I guess that answers that question," Langly said, pulling cakes out of the pile and setting them aside.

"I suppose it's possible they might have used wires to hold it together while they constructed it, and then removed them when they were done…"

"You're grasping at straws, Byers," Frohike muttered. "It's not like superior snack stacking tech is more complicated than," he sighed again, "a storage closet full of ping pong balls or a bathtub of origami crabs."

"What the hell? There _is_ something in here."

Everyone crowded closer. 

"Oh," Byers said weakly as Langly dropped both Sno Balls and a lemon yellow thing with an expression of distaste.

"That's just wrong," he announced to no one in particular.

Mulder picked the object up, shaking off pink flakes. "Looks fine to me. About a 36C, I'd say."

"36 _double_ C," Frohike corrected him. "Go on, check the tag."

"Are you saying I don't know my lingerie?" 

"It's a push-up." Frohike shrugged.

Mulder peered at the tag. "Well, damn. Double or nothing." He held it out for Frohike's appreciation.

"Do we have time for this?" Byers asked desperately.

"Don't rush me. Obviously Victoria's Secret," he said speculatively. " _Very_ nice. Their 'Very Sexy' collection, I believe. 'Lace Plunge'." Frohike grinned at Mulder's face and then turned to regard the others. "Anything you and Jimmy want to tell us, J. Wayne?"

J. Wayne did his best not to giggle. "Not my color. Not his size." 

"So there are _Women_ In Black?" Jimmy asked.

"Yellow," J. Wayne noted in a strangled voice.

Frohike snickered. "Only if one of them is running around braless."

Mulder spread it on the counter thoughtfully. "I'd pay to see that."

Frohike snorted. "When you get fired from the FBI, Mulder, we'll start a UFO-themed strip club."

Mulder smirked. "After I send this and the… cupcakes… back as evidence, it shouldn't take long."

Langly sat heavily on one of the beds. "I am never eating those things again. The Twinkie jokes were bad enough…"

Frohike grinned at Mulder. "And you wanted to go out for Saucy Tarts."

Mulder laughed. "Just so you know, if something like this turns up at the office on Scully's birthday, she is _definitely_ going to shoot me again. Especially if you guess the size right."

"I'd go with a dark green, for her," Frohike reflected.

"Cupcakes?" Mulder gave it a suggestive twist.

Langly whimpered. "Johnny! Make them stop!"

Byers closed his mouth on a sigh. "If we're through with Open Mic Night at the Improv? We've got things to do today."

Mulder grinned at him. "Not so fast. We need pictures."

"Johnny!"

Byers sighed again. He was getting a lot of practice. "Neck-down will do, I think."

It failed to comfort Langly. "I am _not_ getting naked in front of him," he said, pointing at Mulder.

"Give it a rest, Hippie," Frohike instructed calmly. "He's not interested in you, okay?"

"He was last night."

Frohike grinned. "And twenty minutes after you guys left, he was interested in the chair."

There was a long moment while they contemplated this and carefully avoided looking at Mulder. Eventually he cleared his throat. "May I remind everyone that I _had_ been drugged. As in, given mind-altering substances against my will. I wasn't exactly myself."

This was too much, and quiet snickers broke out. Frohike sifted through the available cheap shots and settled for a casual "Does this mean the chair isn't getting a second date?"

Mulder sighed and regarded the fairly random collection of journalists. "Leaving aside anything I may or may not have done last night," bad choice of words, leading to more adolescent snickering, "photographs are just as important to your work as they are to mine. That said, unless anyone's got anything particularly decorative going on somewhere special that they're proud of, we don't need to turn this into a photo shoot for _Wild Dicks Unlimited Magazine_." He offered them all a disarming smile. "C'mon, boys, what are we hiding, holes in our underwear? It's just us guys here."

Jimmy blinked. "Uh… I don't think that works… when… everybody's…" His voice trailed off.

Langly glowered. "When everybody's _what_?"

Jimmy backed away. "Nothing. Forget I said it."

"Listen, you—"

"Enough," Byers pleaded. "Let's just get this over with."

Frohike took pity on his best friends. "We've got three cameras, remember. Take less time if we split up anyhow. Byers, you two go decide what's worth pictures and what's not, up to you," he jerked his head at them, "and Jimmy, you and J. Wayne can get some pictures for each other in here with J. Wayne's camera, and Mulder and I'll use his camera in our room. Okay? If you get anybody's face, just delete it and try again. It might be the key to this, or it might just be for the files, but either way, let's make sure we don't shower away evidence just because it's embarrassing." There were nods, ranging from reluctant to relieved. 

"Which reminds me," Mulder commented. "Is our bathtub crab-free again?"

Jimmy nodded. "I got 'em all into two garbage bags." 

Byers raised an eyebrow. "That's far more than they could possibly have gotten from the origami. Unless there were more?"

"We assumed there was extra this morning, yeah," Mulder said. "They came prepared." He headed through the connecting door, followed by Frohike. "Let's meet at the van when we're done."

Frohike nodded. "Clean up carefully. It's probably just Magic Marker, but it'd suck to get stuck with UGM-shaped rashes or something."

"Mulder'd want pics of that too," Langly grumbled.

"Bet your colorful ass," the agent replied.

**

Jimmy and J. Wayne studied each other like mutual losers in a bad game of strip poker. 

"The one on your back's pretty good," Jimmy said thoughtfully. "Looks like a big spider or something."

J. Wayne nodded over his shoulder at his reflection in the dressing mirror. "What's that on the back of my leg?"

"Which one?"

"This one. It looks a little like…"

"A bunch of ants?"

"Yeah."

"And the things on your front are, what, ladybugs?"

J. Wayne sighed. "Probably. With their wings half open." He gazed at himself a moment longer. "Caterpillar, I think," pointing to one thigh. "Butterfly," calf, "more ants," left arm, "dragonfly, maybe, or lacewing or something," right arm. 

Jimmy grinned. "You're good at this."

"Did I miss anything?"

"Yeah. That one on your butt looks like part of a grasshopper. If you took your shorts off, I could tell."

"It's okay," J. Wayne sighed. "I think I'll keep that one to myself, actually."

Jimmy shrugged. "You don't have to get all embarrassed or anything. I've seen hundreds of naked guys, you know, in showers and stuff, and we're always getting strip-searched, and there was that time with Byers in prison, so it's totally not a big deal."

J. Wayne edged away. "N-no, that's okay. I think there's plenty for photos."

Jimmy nodded. "That's cool. Why bugs?"

J. Wayne shook his head and let himself be distracted. "It's a popular type of crop circle design. They call them insectograms. They're usually more symbolic. Sometimes you see them on rocks, and they can be pretty elaborate. I would think yours are petroglyphs, too. They're in brown, after all," he said, studying Jimmy's chest. "Gray and brown seem like rock colors, maybe. You know…" He frowned and cocked his head for a different angle. "I'm not sure about that. Yours don't look like insects at all. The more I look at it, the more I think they're animals. This one here, I think might be a turtle."

Jimmy squinted down at himself. "Where's the head?"

"Over here, maybe."

"Weird. So what's this thing? His tongue?"

"Well," J. Wayne said slowly. "It might be playing a flute."

"That's stupid. Where would a turtle get a flute?"

J. Wayne raised amused eyebrows. "It might be a legend, I think. I'm not sure. This one looks more like a deer, from the front. These could be antlers."

"They look like feet."

J. Wayne pushed him in front of the mirror. "You're looking at them upside-down."

"Oh, I see it now." 

"I think yours could be earth designs. Geoglyphs. The brown is more like dirt than rock." He traced a design on Jimmy's shoulder, thinking. "This is a lot like a hummingbird. There's something about it…"

After a moment Jimmy said tentatively, "Uh, Wayne? I'm, like, really flattered and everything, but I just don't go for guys. So you could maybe move your hand."

J. Wayne turned bright red and snatched his hand away as though it had been bitten. "Sorry, Jimmy. I don't know…"

Jimmy shook his head. "I mean, it's okay. I'm just not into guys. But all morning, everybody's been looking at everybody like the first day in the locker room so I just thought I'd say."

Still blushing furiously, J. Wayne thought back. "It has been a little like that, hasn't it."

"Yeah. Listen, Wayne?"

"I'm really sorry, Jimmy. I wasn't thinking—"

"No, really. It's okay. But let me ask you something. You were wearing shorts last night and I was wearing sweats."

J. Wayne nodded. "Yeah."

"Okay, so, we still have this stuff all over us. So these Men in Black guys took our clothes off so they could draw this weird stuff on us."

J. Wayne sighed. It was an inescapable conclusion, but one he hadn't felt like spending a lot of time on. "Yeah."

"So what _else_ did they do?"

**

"Turn around," Frohike said pensively.

Mulder grinned. "If you want to look at my ass, Mel…"

"Just turn around. There's something weird about this."

"What, besides the fact that someone put the Jedi Mind Whammy on us and then spent what looks like a couple of hours drawing crop circles all over," he leered, "and I do mean _all over_ , our defenseless, naked bodies?"

Frohike sighed. "Yeah, besides that. Just turn around, okay?"

Mulder didn't seem interested in complying quickly. First he walked in front of the long mirror and, making sure Frohike was watching, leaned way over to plant one hand firmly against the wall, offering two views of an excellent profile. He raked his other hand languidly through his hair, then slid it down his face, his head falling back as the hand continued down his chest. It crept across to play with one nipple and then back to peak the other.

Frohike, watching this, couldn't _quite_ decide whether to laugh or jump the agent. The only thing that kept him where he stood were the impossibly distracting patterns rippling across all that smooth skin as Mulder vamped.

Mulder seemed determined to extract some measure of satisfaction for the way he'd been woken up. His hand moved down his side, skimming across ribs with leisurely enjoyment, resting lightly on his hip for a heartbeat too long before spidering inward to graze what Frohike realized was definitely one of Mulder's more respectable erections. 

As Mel stared, a swelling bead of liquid at the tip caught the light and shone there for a second before it fell, trailing a radiant thread after it. The world had frozen again, icicle sharp, but this time there was no horror, only an overwhelming need. And Mulder. 

Frohike thought he could hear the drop hit the carpet, but he was certain he could hear his own heartbeat. He took a trembling step closer to Mulder, then another. It was like moving through syrup. Mulder's hand was still on his cock, and Mel wasn't even sure the man was still breathing. Another step and he could hear the agent's heartbeat, too. 

It was the only sign the other man wasn't just some perversely beautiful work of art. He hadn't moved, for once was totally silent. Frohike was close enough to feel the heat of Mulder's skin, the faint puffs of breath. 

He reached out. 

**

"Do we have to do this, John?"

Byers sighed. Langly was likely to whine about this all day. It wasn't, really, John's idea of a fun time, either, though perhaps under other, more private, circumstances, candid photography might hold some appeal. He shook the thought away. 

"Yes, we do. You know we do." He slipped his jacket off and hung it neatly on a chair, toeing his shoes off and reaching for his tie. 

Langly stood in the middle of the room, arms folded tightly over his t-shirt. "I just don't like the idea of Mulder having pictures of me, naked."

Byers almost laughed as he pulled off his shirt. "I can see your point. Look, we don't have to get pictures of everything. I'm sure he's seen your chest before."

Langly snorted. "Yeah, and he's seen _all_ of you before. So has Skinner." Byers blushed furiously while Langly went on. "And I don't suppose it's occurred to you that Skinner's gonna see the pics, and so is anybody else who can get into Mulder's office—which is everybody. Scully, Krycek, Cancer Man.."

Byers grimaced. "We'll make sure Mulder doesn't put our names on it, all right? Let's just get this over with."

Byers was down to his shorts, but Langly was still fully clothed. He raised an eyebrow. "Well?"

Langly recrossed his arms and glared. "No."

"Langly…"

"No. I'm not doing it." A stray shaft of light caught the determined expression, playing across straw gold hair as Langly shook his head. 

Byers took a step toward him. "Yes, you are," he said with a faint smile. A little closer still.

Langly swallowed and tried for resolve. "I hate pictures. You _know_ I hate pictures, Johnny."

Byers tugged at the hem of Langly's t-shirt. "I know. But I also know something else about you." The hand slid under his shirt and he took a careful breath. "I know," Byers said softly in his ear, "how far you'll go to print a story."

Langly yelped. "Print!" 

Byers put a finger to his lips. "Figure of speech." He smiled again. "It's just for the records."

Langly sighed as his shirt was lifted over his head. "I hate it when you humor me."

Byers chuckled. "It would be," his hands at Langly's fly, "totally unethical for us to include ourselves in a story."

The younger man ran a nervous tongue over his lips. "Unethical." 

"Totally." Byers slid his hand into Langly's boxers. "So you're safe."

Langly's eyes were wide, staring into John's. "Safe?"

"In my hands," he said in that low voice. "Always, you are safe. In my hands."

Langly whimpered and bit his lip. The other hand joined the one in his boxers and Byers smiled at him again. "So, why don't we just…" Langly's jeans dropped to the carpet, "get this over with. Hmm?"

"If you wanted me naked…" surrender on a gasp, "all you had to do was ask, Johnny."

**

J. Wayne finished looking through the images on the camera. "I guess that'll do. You can go shower now. I need to check some things." He looked around. "Have you seen my laptop?"

Jimmy grabbed a towel. "I think you left it in the other room."

"Okay, thanks." He went to knock on the adjoining door and hesitated. He thought about the way everybody seemed to be acting, a little surprised that Jimmy had managed to pin it down. He was a nice guy, but not that smart. But he'd been exactly right, and J. Wayne figured he could guess what was going on in Mulder and Frohike's room. 

He smirked a little to himself. Jimmy was already in the shower, singing at the top of his voice. It should be enough to cover the sound of him knocking, especially if he didn't knock _too_ loudly. He had a feeling whatever the guys were up to would be worth seeing uninterrupted. Then again, based on everything he'd seen—and heard—so far, the two of them were unlikely to mind an audience. 

He knocked on the door, not as firmly as he might have, and quickly pulled it open. "Sorry, but I—" 

Oh, wow. J. Wayne stood in the doorway and just stared. This was definitely worth the crabs and the peaches and the gooey beach things. 

Frohike was sprawled on the floor, eyes closed, an expression of bliss on his weathered features. His hands were tangled in Mulder's hair as the agent's head bobbed above his crotch. One hand moved restlessly across Frohike's dark, furry chest, the other propped underneath him between Frohike's legs. 

Frohike stifled a moan and looked up, startled.

J. Wayne grinned. "I hope you guys already got the pictures, because you're smearing the ink."

Mulder lifted his head, amusement bright in his eyes. Amazingly even Frohike was blushing, and J. Wayne could feel himself turning a little red, but Mulder didn't seem remotely embarrassed. 

His grin got bigger. "You want the barnacle back?"

Frohike sighed. "We got… distracted."

"You don't say."

Mulder pulled himself off of Frohike with a wet smack and leaned back on one arm in unmistakable invitation. "Did you just come to watch, J. Wayne? Or do you want to… lend a hand?" 

J. Wayne started laughing as Frohike tried unsuccessfully to cover himself. "I don't think we have time. John and Ringo are probably waiting for us."

Frohike snorted. "Bet they're not."

Mulder laughed and patted Frohike's thigh with affection. "I have to say, this is one of the better knockout drugs I've been given."

Frohike sat up unhappily and reached for his shorts. "Yeah, kudos to the MIB for their research program. In retrospect, it was probably a bad idea to do Mulder first. Shut up, Mulder," he said without looking.

The agent snickered. "So was there… something you wanted, J. Wayne?" 

Frohike sighed. "Let's take a rain check on that, okay? We really do need the pictures."

He laughed and crossed the room. "I left my laptop in here. There was something odd about the marks on Jimmy that I wanted to check." 

Frohike frowned. "Odd how?"

"I'm not sure. But he's got a hummingbird on his shoulder that might be from the Nazca Lines. A few other zoomorphs."

Frohike nodded. "I bet you're right. I know mine are crop circles, and so are Mulder's, but they're different, besides the color."

Mulder looked down at his chest, tracing an abstract pattern of curves and lenses. "I think mine are hoaxes."

Frohike stared. "That's what it was."

"Well, this is one of the Kennewick designs. I've got a postcard of it on the wall in my office. And look at this one…" He gestured lower.

"Mulder, nobody's falling for that."

Mulder waved him off. "No, I mean it. This is one of the Ripley Formations. The ratcheting spiral is unmistakable."

Frohike leaned closer. "That was a hoax?"

"Circlemakers. And this is the Sea of Souls shattered petals formation, also theirs."

"I suppose we should be grateful they didn't put the Hello Kitty design on your butt."

Mulder laughed and sat up. "Yours aren't hoaxes, though. That Milk Hill Bee on your side is extremely well done. They're green?" It was a question. 

J. Wayne glanced over.

"It all looks gray to him. He's red-green colorblind," Frohike explained. "Yeah, green. What about yours, J. Wayne?"

He looked up from his computer. "Insectograms. Petroglyphs, I expect. Jimmy's got a turtle playing a flute on him. Might be Navajo. And here's the whale from the Nazca Lines. He's got that across his, uh, lower back."

Frohike shook his head. "I can't wait to see what the boys come up with."

**

Langly flopped back onto the bed, panting. "Oh, man."

Byers sighed and stretched. "That wasn't supposed to happen."

Langly snorted. "That's what you said the first time."

Byers rolled over, blushing. "I mean, we have things to do."

Langly took a lazy stretch. "I was going to remind you, but you seemed to be having fun."

"Very considerate. I suppose we'd better get cleaned up and finish the photos."

Langly smirked. "I think you ruined that one."

Byers looked at his stomach. "Oh."

"What was it supposed to be, anyway?"

Byers squinted at it. "You know, I think it's a constellation. Ursa Major, maybe. Because this…" He broke off, blushing.

Langly took a closer look. "The Big Dipper," he snickered. "I guess that makes your dick the North Star."

"We're _not_ getting pictures of that."

Langly just laughed.

**

They assembled at the van nearly an hour later. Frohike gave Byers a look. 

"Took you guys long enough."

Byers immediately shaded bright red while Langly tried to cover his laughter with a coughing fit. 

"Did you at least remember the pictures?"

"Some," Langly choked. It took a couple of minutes of Byers and Frohike pounding him on the back to get him to stop. 

"Are you okay, Ringo?"

Langly smiled weakly. "Yeah, I'm okay." He turned his gaze on Frohike. "Did _you_ get the pictures?"

Frohike blushed slightly while Mulder grinned. "Yeah, yeah."

"Well," Byers commented, still embarrassed. "It does look as though… we might… get more done today if we… ah, try some different arrangements."

Mulder snickered as Frohike sighed. "Suppose so. I know I'm gonna be really interested in the results of those carpet samples, Byers."

"I bet," Langly snickered, but there wasn't much heart in it. 

"I'd say that finding out more about our friends with the natty fashion sense has become a top priority, all things considered," Mulder observed. "And aside from just waiting around for them to get back to us, there's really only one place to start with that."

"The Nordstrom men's wear department?" J. Wayne asked with a half smile.

Langly almost laughed. "You and Mulder are a bad influence on him, Fro."

Mel's grin had bounced back. "Somebody has to be."

**

Over breakfast, they discussed how to stake out Payter.

"There's a sort of junkyard a few blocks away," Frohike offered. "We can park the van there, there's a whole bunch of cars. Nobody'll notice."

"We need to get close, though," Byers pointed out. "Someone needs to look in the windows. We don't know if he's alone."

Mulder snickered. "Look for black hats and sunglasses?"

Byers frowned. "It's possible the real Payter is being held in there."

"Assuming he's still alive," J. Wayne put in, worriedly. 

Frohike grimaced. "Let's hope for the best. But we should also wire him for audio, video if we can get it. He's got to have some contact. Phone calls, visitors, whatever. It won't do us any good if we don't know what they're up to."

"So we need to get him to the door and distracted," Byers concluded. "Any preferences?"

"He's seen me and J. Wayne and Mulder. It's gonna have to be you or Langly or… You or Langly." Frohike grimaced. "No offense, Jimmy. You don't improvise that well."

"Not that Langly or I do." Byers sighed. "I can do the religious thing, I suppose."

"I don't think we have time to go find a few copies of the Book of Mormon. I left them in the warehouse because they took up too much space. You'd have to do most of the street if you want it to be believable."

"Did we bring the puppy thing?" Langly asked. "I'm pretty good at that."

"The puppy thing?" Mulder inquired, gazing with interest at Frohike.

"Settle down, you pervert," Frohike told him. "Sometimes we use a Have You Seen This Puppy flyer."

"We used the last of those on the Kodama job," Byers said pointedly, looking at Langly. "It's on the to-do list."

"I forgot!"

"Kiss and make up, boys," Frohike suggested distractedly. "Subscriptions to _Spider Fancy_?" he asked hopefully. Byers shook his head. " _Cockatoo Fancy_? _Bigfoot Fancy_?"

Mulder laughed. "You might actually have to come across with that one, out here."

Jimmy cleared his throat. Langly covered his eyes. "We could just try to sell them subscriptions to our paper. We might even make some money."

There was a long silence as the rest of them regarded each other with resignation. 

"Jimmy," Byers began carefully.

"Look, dummy," Langly said. "When you're illegally surveilling somebody you suspect is a part of a secret global conspiracy dedicated to covering up, sometimes violently, the kind of thing that it's your _job_ to report on, it's a bad idea to give them, you know, your names and your mailing address. Got it?"

Frohike grinned suddenly. "We could offer subscriptions to _Powder Keg_."

Mulder started laughing at the horrified expression on J. Wayne's face. Within seconds Langly was reduced to giggles, too.

Byers sighed. "That's a little cold-blooded, isn't it?"

Frohike threw a sugar packet at Mulder. "Okay, stuff it back into the little clown car. J. Wayne, relax, it was a joke. So what do we have?"

"I saw the BGH petition in one of the files," Byers said thoughtfully.

Frohike blinked at him. "Well, I guess it's good we have it, but, why? What file?"

Byers looked casually at the ceiling. "One or another. I'll find it."

Everyone stared. " _You_ don't remember where something is?" Frohike demanded.

Byers flushed. "I didn't say that."

The light dawned. He turned to Jimmy. "Of course. You filed the fake Bovine Growth Hormone petition in the Cattle Mutilations folder."

Jimmy shrugged. "Maybe. Was it about cows?"

Langly snickered.

Frohike took pains not to meet anyone's eyes. "I suppose we did at least bring the thru-glass receivers?"

Byers nodded somewhat meekly. "Eight of them."

Still looking out the window. "Are they waterproof?"

Langly followed his eyes. "We brought the duct tape, too."

Frohike stood, sighing heavily. "Okay. Let's get this show on the road, MacGyver." 

"Or not," Mulder said, amused, watching the door. 

Frohike sat back down. "Great."

Sela Loy jingled her way over to their table. "Good morning."

Mulder offered her a charming smile. "Miss Loy, how nice to see you again. Gentlemen, this is Sela Loy, our tipster from last night. Miss Loy, John Byers, Jimmy Bond, and Ringo Langly."

She nodded shortly at each of them, seeming more businesslike than usual. 

"So," Mulder said. "Any more predictions today? Any more… fruit?"

She shook her head. "I don't believe so. Our leader requests your presence."

Frohike raised an eyebrow. "That would be Brother Bill?"

Loy was oblivious to the mocking tone. "Yes. Brother Bill the Righteous. He has been on our path for many lifetimes, but it was only in this incarnation that he realized he could take some measure of control over the circumstances that had come to control him."

Frohike wondered if she was quoting Brother Bill himself. "Is it working?"

Loy smiled, but it was a twitchy thing. "It works for him."

"And he wants to see us?" Mulder prompted.

She nodded. "Yes. This evening at eight. He has some very important information to offer you." She looked around the table, seeming to withhold personal judgment. "All of you."

Frohike started to say something, but Mulder cut him off. "All right. Where?"

From somewhere in her outfit came what was apparently a glossy tourism brochure. "Directions and a map are inside. If you get lost, please don't hesitate to call our hotline." A small envelope followed. "These passes will get you past the guard at the gate." She looked at Mulder. "If you bring your weapon, you will be required to check it for the duration of your visit."

Frohike gave her another sharp look, wondering if she'd memorized the entire speech. Or maybe just had gotten some sleep for a change. The woman seemed like a different person.

"Well. That's certainly very, ahm, organized," Byers commented. "Do we need identification?"

Loy shook her head and pulled a small, squat cylinder from somewhere else. "No. You need this. May I have your hands, gentlemen?"

There was a lot of nervous shuffling, and then Byers warily held out his hand. "What is it?"

"A secure identification to get you into the Center itself. You'll need to show it to the doorkeeper." She turned his hand over and pulled the cap off, stamping the back of Byers' hand with it. When he reclaimed his hand from her trembling grip, he inspected it. "What kind of ink is this?"

"It's a special black light reactive invisible ink. It's entirely non-toxic," she added. 

"Cool." Langly snickered. "Are we going to a rave?"

Loy glanced at him. "It's simply a security measure. The stamp cannot be duplicated, and it will not wash off."

"Ever?" Jimmy demanded.

She blinked. "For a few days."

J. Wayne shrugged and offered his hand. "Okay, I guess."

She stamped the rest of them, and disappeared without another word. 

Frohike glared at Mulder. "What'd you go and agree to that for?"

"I'd like to find out a little more about them. For example, do they know how to fold origami?"

It silenced the table. 

"That," Byers started hesitantly, "would explain a great deal."

"Not everything, though." Frohike frowned. "Like the clam. But I guess it's worth looking at."

"Wait, you guys think she's one of those Men in Black guys?"

Byers shook his head. "I doubt it, Jimmy. But we're really only assuming that what's been happening is the MIB. It might very well be something different."

"Like a bunch of heavily armed insomniac nutcases." Frohike grimaced. "That makes me feel a lot better, knowing they saw us all naked last night. All right, back at the hotel by seven."

Byers cleared his throat. "Should we consider changing hotels? You know, after…"

They looked at each other for a while and then Mel shrugged. "I don't think it'll help. They really have been four steps ahead of us the whole time. If they want to do weird shit, they'll do it no matter where we are."

Mulder's lip curled. "God knows no one has had any trouble finding us."

Nobody looked happy, but nobody argued the point, either.

Byers let it go. "Who's doing the Payter stakeout?"

"I guess Langly and I can do that, at least for the first shift."

"Stakeouts suck, Fro."

"Would you rather spend the day with Mulder, Ringo?"

Langly glared. "Fine. Stakeout it is."

Mulder laughed. "I'll take J. Wayne and we can check with some of my contacts in the area."

Frohike snorted. "I don't think so. Take Jimmy instead. Or Byers."

Byers shook his head. "I think it might be a good idea to see what J. Wayne's Mr. Rickson has to say. He and I can handle that, but someone'll have to drop us off at the car rental place. If he's not home, we'll head back to the hotel and work on the samples, and try again later."

Langly glared at J. Wayne. "Why can't Jimmy go see this guy with you?"

Mel elbowed him. "This could be a tricky interview. Not really Jimmy's thing."

Langly subsided with bad grace.

Mulder raised an eyebrow at Byers. "You think he'll talk?"

Byers shrugged. "We have nothing to lose by asking."

J. Wayne nodded. "He seemed like he _had_ to talk about it, really. And it's been a few weeks since the MIB visited him, so maybe he's willing, now."

"You could always get him drunk before you ask," Frohike commented. "Seems to loosen his tongue."

Byers shook his head. "That's so unethical."

Frohike chuckled. "Of course it is. Word of advice, boys?" His gaze took in J. Wayne and Byers both. "Dress casual."

**

Rickson's home was a large suburban with a well-manicured lawn and a number of stately trees in the front yard. 

"Nice place," Byers commented approvingly. "It could indicate an organized personality, which would help us."

J. Wayne nodded thoughtfully. "When he's sober, anyway."

Byers gave a crooked smile. "Or it might just mean he has a lawn service. Have you done much of this before? Interviewing sources?"

J. Wayne grimaced. "Yeah. Zev always gives—gave—me the real crazies."

Byers chuckled. "The crazy threshold is pretty high to begin with."

"Believe me, I know. How do you want to handle this?"

"Let's just play it straight. He called you, so he wanted to talk. Let's see where he goes with it."

"But don't mention the trace."

"No. Don't give him any information he doesn't already have. It can contaminate his own recollections."

"Okay. Should we have told him we were coming?"

Byers gave him an odd look. "No. It just gives them a chance to disappear, or practice their stories. You want them unprepared."

"Sorry." J. Wayne rapped on the door, to no response. He was about to knock again when it swung inwards to reveal…

"If you're here about the taxidermy, I'm afraid I don't do that anymore."

Byers cleared his throat. "Mr. Rickson?"

The man nodded. "Yes."

J. Wayne sighed faintly. 

"Mr. Joe Rickson?"

"Yes, that's right. And you are?"

Byers glanced at his companion, who was still speechless, and elected to do the talking. "I'm John Byers, and this is J. Wayne Arthur. You spoke to him when you called Powder Keg about your, ah, unusual experience." Byers heard a quiet snort beside him. "May we come in?"

"Oh, yes. I remember." Rickson smiled and held the door open. "Of course, come in." He ushered them into a large, sunny living room and directed them to a new-looking blue couch along one wall. 

"Could I get you something to drink? Or eat? I have some fresh carrot juice."

Byers ignored the small noise from J. Wayne. "That would be lovely."

Rickson padded barefoot from the room to the accompaniment of rustling noises, detouring around the three foot silver mound of airline peanut packets in the middle of the room,. 

J. Wayne turned to stare at Byers. "Oh, my God," he said quietly.

Byers tried not to laugh. "Well, sometimes you feel like a nut…"

J. Wayne nearly whimpered. 

"Listen," Byers said quickly. "Here's how we handle this: ignore it, unless he mentions it. Then pretend it's perfectly normal."

"You've done this before?"

Byers sighed. "The bubble wrap suit is new, no. But in general."

"We're not going to get anything useful out of him."

"Unfortunately, probably not. But we're here, so we might as well find out."

Rickson returned bearing a tray with three tall glasses of a pale orange liquid. He set the tray down and, with a bare hand, passed them each a glass and a linen napkin.

Taking his own, he perched on the matching loveseat. "So you've come all this way to talk about my experience? How exciting. I wasn't sure you would."

Byers blinked. This didn't sound like a man who had to get drunk to talk about a sighting. But then, this was pretty much off the charts as far as predictability went. He shrugged internally and decided to just go with it.

"I understand you didn't get a chance to share many details over the phone?"

Peering out of a face hole cut in the full body wrap, his expression became more guarded. That was a lot closer to what Byers expected of people being interviewed about UFOs, and maybe this wouldn't be a complete waste of time.

"I'm sorry to tell you that I don't completely recall the conversation. Perhaps you could refresh my memory?"

J. Wayne's hand went to the pocket where he kept his Palm Pilot, and he glanced at Byers, who frowned but nodded slightly. "Initially, you told me it was an equilateral triangle, in black, with blue lights ranged along each side." He pulled up the file. "You told me you saw it hovering over Maury Island, though you weren't specific about where you were at the time."

The man was nodding, the bubble wrap making crinkling noises. "Yes. I remember now." 

Byers concentrated on Rickson's face. He'd wrapped himself in multiple layers of large-pocket packing material, doing his torso and limbs separately. The wrap stopped at his wrists and ankles, where silvery duct tape held it neatly in place. It had been arranged in a sort of hood over his head, leaving his face free, at least. This wasn't exactly the weirdest thing he'd seen a source do, and after the past week it was almost boring.

"You also told me the craft had a round, transparent, well, you called it a window, set flat into the bottom of it, and a sort of transparent, um…" J. Wayne managed to keep an almost straight face, "bubble, on top"

"Yes, of course. I was actually out at Point Robinson. There's a lighthouse there. Perhaps I should have explained this better. The craft was hovering over the Old Maury Cemetery when I noticed it. I happened to be looking that direction because I needed to make some topographical calculations for my work there. You see, it's important to determine if there are any tumuli in the area of concern, no matter how slight. They can break up the flow of energy and cause unwanted knots in the nutrient streams, which of course leads to dead patches."

J. Wayne winced and Byers sighed faintly. "So you didn't see it arrive?"

"No. I did see it leave. It tilted up slightly at one corner and sped off, with sort of a skipping motion. Almost like a rock across a lake. It was quite an unusual sight."

J. Wayne seemed puzzled, but nodded. "I can imagine. Now, the second time you called, you—" 

From the corner of his eye, he saw Byers shaking his head almost imperceptibly.

"How fast would you estimate it went?" Byers interrupted. "I had the impression it was very slow?"

Rickson gave him a look. "No, it was fairly fast, I thought." He seemed nervous now, the bubble wrap rubbing against itself as he fidgeted. "It's hard to judge speed at a distance, but it was out of sight within a minute, once it started moving."

"Could you say how big it was?"

"No, I'm afraid not. As I said, the distance…"

Byers nodded sympathetically. He started to ask another question, but was interrupted by a beeping. Rickson stood up and reached into a slit in the wrap with a series of squeaks, pulling loose a cell phone. 

"I have to take this."

He turned away, and J. Wayne shot a look at Byers. Byers shook his head again and mouthed "Later". J. Wayne nodded.

"My Lord," Rickson said abruptly. "Have you tried cinnamon?"

Byers raised an eyebrow. J. Wayne shrugged.

"I see. And the citrine crystals I gave you? Oh, dear. Not even the Finzi? 'Before And After Summer', I assume. Oh."

He took a deep breath. "Well, yes, yes, of course. I'll be there instantly. Please don't panic. I'm certain we can save it." He moved into the adjoining room for a moment and came back with a black case of the sort doctors in old movies carried. "No, please! Remember, your fear is poison!" He clicked the phone shut and turned to them. 

"I'm terribly sorry, gentlemen, but I must go out. Perhaps you could come by again later?"

Byers stood. "Perhaps in a day or so."

"Excellent." He motioned them to the door. "Duty calls."

"One last question," Byers said on the porch. "I'm wondering why you called _Powder Keg_ with your… information?"

"What?" He pulled his key from the lock with a touch of impatience.

"Why did you contact _Powder Keg_ , instead of a more local organization?"

"Oh, yes. My brother-in-law provided the number. He's a subscriber."

"Thank you. Sorry to keep you from your emergency. I hope it's not too bad."

With a sick look and a hushed voice, he gave them the tragic details. "It may be. It's crabgrass."

**

"That guy was weird."

Mulder sighed. "I'm sure he thought the same about you."

Jimmy looked surprised. "Why?"

"Well, I doubt he expected you to knock over the table with his coconut pearl and vegetable ivory collection while trying to make conversation with his pet lizards."

"I helped him find them all," Jimmy said defensively. "Anyway, I never knew coconuts made pearls."

Mulder shrugged. "They probably don't."

"What about the vegetable ivory?"

"It's some kind of seed, that's all."

Jimmy was quiet for a while. "He didn't seem like he believed in crop circles and aliens and stuff."

"Not everyone does."

"He knew a lot about them, though."

"That was the point, yes."

"Where are we going next?"

"The University of Washington. We have an appointment to talk to someone in their Paleolithic anthropology department about the petroglyph and geoglyph designs." He glanced at Jimmy. "I have an appointment. Maybe you should stay in the car this time."

Jimmy shrugged. "Okay."

"After that, we can head to the library and see if we can identify the constellations and fish designs that were on Byers and Langly. The fish looked like deep sea stuff to me."

Jimmy frowned. "Do they do those on rocks, too?"

"I guess we'll find out."

Jimmy nodded. "Okay. I hope they don't mind if we're late."

Mulder cast him another glance. "Why would we be late?"

Jimmy shrugged again. "Because you missed the exit for the university a while back and I think we're lost again."

**

Langly had approached several doors with the petition, only to be rebuffed by three of the four people who answered, including their target. While Payter--or whoever he was--was thus occupied, Frohike had sneaked around the house placing Micro 6 Thru Glass transmitters on various windows and making sure they wouldn't get rained on. 

When they turned the shotgun directional receiver on, the man was talking. 

"I bet he called somebody," Langly speculated. 

"And that, Arnie, is why we wear hardhats on the job," said Payter. 

Frohike and Langly exchanged glances. 

"Arnie?" Langly said. "What kind of MIB is named Arnie?"

"Shh."

"Just look at this room," Payter shouted. "Body segments everywhere!" And then he laughed, a weirdly normal sound, considering.

Langly's eyes went wide. "You think--?"

Frohike shook his head. "Segments?"

"Maybe they _are_ aliens."

"You know, Vern, the thought of what this place is going to look like in about a week just gives me the creeps." There was a pause, and then another laugh. 

Langly looked ready to panic. Frohike put a hand on his shoulder. "Relax. Let's just listen some more. There's something weird going on here. He was alone, right?"

Langly nodded. "I didn't see anyone else."

"Me either. There's something definitely not right about this."

"Did you detect something a little ominous," Payter went on, "in the way they said 'See you later'?"

Langly shook his head. "I didn't say that."

"Oooooweeeeee!" Frohike hastily tuned the volume down. "This thing's been here a loooooooong time. Well, thank God for ketchup."

Langly put his hands over his mouth, eyes bulging. 

Frohike was more baffled when Payter cackled. "Luke! On your right! Cattle shark!"

Langly looked up from his search for a barf bag.

"Cattle shark?" Frohike demanded. "Cattle shark?"

Langly slumped back in his chair, a lot less green suddenly. "Cattle shark," he repeated. "Cattle shark." He snapped his fingers. "You know what he's doing?" He grabbed the laptop and started typing rapidly. "Cattle shark."

"Thor's hammer, screwdriver--"

"--And crescent wrench!" Langly finished with him. "Fro, he's reading a _Far Side_ book."

"Inexplicably, Bob's porcupine goes flat." Another moment of silence, and then Payter was howling with laughter.

Frohike sighed and turned the volume way, way down.

**

"I don't think that was really him," J. Wayne said tentatively. 

"I wondered about that. You seemed surprised. And he didn't really act like a man who had to get drunk to talk to reporters."

"Is that why you didn't want me to talk about the Men in Black?"

Byers nodded. "With what happened to Payter, it seems logical that they replaced him, too. I'd rather not tip our hand."

J. Wayne thought about it for a while. "If he was an impersonator, he wasn't doing a very good job."

Byers smiled. "Maybe not. Though generally if he wasn't what he said he was, we could have expected him to have behaved more normally. He was weird enough to be authentic. And you're the only one who had talked to him, and you are somewhat inexperienced, as well as being someone with whom we've not worked before. It would be reasonable to expect us to dismiss your sense that he's different."

He looked worried. "Plus I've dragged you all out all this way and we've got nothing but crab confetti and a bra to show for it now."

"We've done stories on less. Don't worry about it. We'll get to the bottom of this. For now, though, I want to take another look at those photos from this morning."

"And the carpet fibers?"

Byers colored slightly. "Ehr, yes. Those too."

**

"How's it going, boys?"

Frohike sighed. "Nothing yet."

"I brought lunch, anyway."

"Great," Langly said. "I'm starving. What'd you get?"

Mulder smirked. "Dick's."

Langly turned to stare at him. "Uh, what?"

"I got Dick's."

"That's what I thought you said." He didn't seem much happier for the confirmation. He glanced at Frohike, who was smiling. "Mulder?"

"Yeah."

"How many?" Langly wanted to know. 

Mulder was still grinning. "Eight."

Langly blinked. "No wonder Frohike wanted you out here."

Mulder laughed. "Dick's Drive-In. It's pretty popular out here. I got eight Deluxe burgers, and fries. Plus four chocolate shakes. Not to be missed."

Langly sighed and moved back to let Mulder and Jimmy in. "If anybody could find something like that, Mulder, it'd be you."

Frohike dug into the bag for some greasy fries. "Langly's going to cover part of your shift so you and I can go on an errand."

Mulder narrowed his eyes. "An errand? You forget to walk the crabs? Are we picking up milk, bread, and depilatory for Bigfoot?"

"Bigfoot's a hoax, even you know that. We're meeting a contact," Frohike explained. "This afternoon at two. I got the email."

Langly snickered. "This is perfect for you, Mulder. You and Fro have to take this one."

Frohike snorted. "Should be fun."

Mulder looked from one to the other. "Okay, what's the joke."

Frohike tried not to laugh. "The guy wants someone to meet him at work. He works for, uh, something called the T&A Supply Company."

Langly snickered some more. "It's perfect. You two should enjoy it."

"The…"

Frohike laughed. "Fight it down, Mulder. It's a flooring company. Foundations to tiles, that sort of thing. It just happens to have a stupid name."

Mulder sighed. "No kidding."

Langly snorted, mouthing the word "Fox". 

Mulder reached across and thumped his headset. Langly scrabbled it off as the feedback whined in his ears. 

"Asshole," he muttered.

Mulder smiled sweetly. "I value your opinion, _Ringo_."

Frohike shook his head. "Don't make me give you a time out, boys."

Mulder sighed. "Okay, so who is this guy?"

Frohike shrugged. "He said he'd meet us in the parking lot. We'll leave Jimmy here with Langly and go check it out."

Langly eyed Jimmy with disfavor. "Why don’t you take Jimmy with you. In case it's a set up or something."

Frohike shook his head. "Nope. Gotta have two people on stakeouts. You know that."

"He's right, though. Backup would be a good thing."

Frohike looked at Mulder for a moment. "Okay." He pulled out his cell phone and dialed. "Where are you guys? Oh. Weirdness. Well, can you spare the kid for a bit? Mulder and I are going to meet someone, and it kind of smells funny." He listened for a bit. "Well, we're not exactly drowning in leads. No, he can tell us on the way. Okay, okay. We'll swing by and pick him up. See you in a while."

He looked up into Mulder's grin and Langly's smirk. 

"You should take Byers, too. You three need a chaperon."

Frohike raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, and Byers sure kept your minds on your work this morning."

Langly turned bright pink and pulled the headset back on. "Whatever."

**

"Nobody's coming," Mulder said for the fifth time, scanning the parking lot. "The whole thing was a joke."

"Ten more minutes," Frohike responded, also for the fifth time. "It's not like we're up to our necks in leads, here." He shrugged. "At least it stopped raining."

"Maybe he saw J. Wayne and it spooked him."

They'd arrived early, so the kid had suggested circling around the lot and watching from behind some cars nearer the other driveway in the hopes of catching a plate number if the guy came in or went out through there.

Otherwise, the plan was for Mulder to stay in the car and watch the drive they had parked near, and for Frohike to meet the contact when—or if—he appeared. They were supposed to be waiting for someone, they assumed a man, but it could just as easily have been a woman, with a blue jacket and a copy of a local weekly called _The Stranger_. 

Mulder had shaken his head at this detail, even more convinced it was a joke. 

A rumble behind them caused them both to turn expectantly. A cement mixer came up behind them and pulled to an idle near the construction trucks at the side of the lot. The driver, in a gray jumpsuit, hopped out of the cab, leaving the motor on and the drum turning, and dashed for the offices of the warehouse. 

"Damn," Mulder sighed. "Let's just give it up."

Frohike cleared his throat, cutting off Mulder's next round of complaints. "What do you suppose that's about?"

Mulder followed his gaze. "Looks a little out of place, doesn't he," he said slowly. "Where did he come from?"

Frohike shook his head. "I don't know. I turned back, and he was right there."

They stared at a large figure leaning against a fence at the edge of the parking lot. The man, in a suit and red power tie, casually holding a tan leather briefcase, his face obscured by a newspaper, from this distance looked like he'd fit in on any downtown sidewalk, but definitely not here, on broken tarmac against dirty chain link, with a drainage ditch just beyond. 

As they watched, another figure seemed to appear from nowhere to join the first. Mulder caught glimpses of dark skin and heavy glasses, another red tie, another tan briefcase.

"Those look like blue jackets to me," Frohike commented.

"Are they wearing matching wigs?" Mulder asked incredulously.

"Sure looks like it."

Mulder shook his head. "Maybe the Donald Trump look is in among lawyers this year."

Frohike smiled, opening his car door. "I think I'll go ask."

"Is that a good idea?"

Frohike looked back at him and shrugged. "What's the worst that can happen?"

"I'll remind you you said that later."

He grinned, shut the door quietly, and headed across the lot.

The closer he got, the larger he realized the unknown figures were. Not just height, but bulk. The two of them seemed to see the journalist coming, and milled about slightly, but didn't make any attempt to leave.

The hair was rising on the back of Mulder's neck, and he jumped from the car and hurried to catch up to Frohike.

Frohike had a good twenty feet head start on him, and Mulder didn't hear what he said to the strangers, but the biggest one dropped his newspaper and briefcase and scooped the journalist up under one arm as though he were an oversized teddy bear. The other figure dropped his newspaper and grabbed his case with both hands, holding it up and running forward to block Mulder as the first one headed along the fence with a struggling and furious Frohike.

Mulder slammed his fist into the gut of the one in front of him and yelped. It was like hitting a brick wall. The guy didn't even notice. It was too late to rethink his strategy though, as Mulder's knee was already coming up hard into his assailant's groin, not that the guy noticed that, either. Mulder hit the ground in agony, his leg on fire.

The first figure had nearly reached the break in the fence. Once he got into the trees, there would be nothing they could do. Mulder scrabbled for his gun just as the briefcase came down hard on his head, and then everything went black.

**

J. Wayne saw Frohike walking towards the men at the edge of the lot and began moving closer. He wasn't sure where the guys had come from, but they hadn't come by car, and he had a feeling they wouldn't leave by car either. 

He watched Mulder head after Frohike, and started to worry. A flash of movement caught his eye by the end of the fence nearest the warehouse, and he whipped his head around to see more figures in suits moving in the trees in the distance. 

He heard Frohike yell and turned back just in time to see the first one start running in his direction, Frohike under his arm, as the other dashed towards Mulder.

J. Wayne looked around in a panic until he settled on the still-idling cement mixer. He climbed gracelessly into the cab, thanking the god of feckless journalists as he quickly scanned the controls. 

As the one carrying Frohike loped toward him, J. Wayne mashed the controls randomly, relieved to see the barrel start to tilt downwards. It didn't occur to him to wonder if there was anything in the mixer until then, but the sudden scraping noise as the truck was jerked about by its shifting load put that fear to rest at least. Now he just needed to see if he could work out how to turn the thing…

He heard a howl and glanced into the mirror in time to see Frohike's would-be abductor slide in the wet concrete on the lot surface and go down flailing. It gave him the extra seconds he needed to lever the chute into position while the drum continued its upward angle, managing to get enough of the heavy muck on them to force him to let go of Frohike.

The other figure had reached them by this time, and yanked the larger shape from the mess with seemingly little effort. Forgetting everything, they bolted for the gap in the fence and the woods beyond.

By now, men were swarming out of the warehouse like outraged ants. 

J. Wayne stepped out of the truck onto wobbly legs and looked for Mulder. The agent was rolling over, starting to sit up. J. Wayne took it as a good sign and went to make sure Frohike was okay. The furious driver intercepted him, pinning him against the side of the truck. "What the fuck did you do?"

A woman with a serious bleach job dashed up and grabbed the driver's upraised arm. "Don't hit him, Bobby! He was tryin' to save that other guy!"

Bobby glared at her. "What are you talking about?"

"I saw the whole thing!" the girl wailed. "Those guys were kidnappin' that little guy and this guy was tryin' to stop them!"

Bobby turned his attention back to J. Wayne, who tried to decide if he should be more alarmed by the big guy who seemed to want to punch him, or by the fashion victim who was batting her eyelashes and licking her lips at him over Bobby's shoulder. 

"I can pay you for any damage," he said quickly. "They were attacking my friends, and I didn't know what else to do."

Bobby's fist came down. J. Wayne found that the mention of money often smoothed out these scenes better than explanations, and, in truth, after what he thought he'd seen, he wasn't sure he _had_ an explanation. 

"Well, now."

"Let me check on my friends while you determine how much damage I've done."

Bobby nodded grudgingly and followed him. The woman tagged along, not that J. Wayne was surprised. Around the back of the truck quite a crowd had gathered as Frohike cursed and demanded someone help him up. 

J. Wayne reached a hand down and someone pushed it aside. 

"Gloves, son," came the avuncular advice from a man who was pulling on heavy orange rubber. "You don't wanna get burned."

"It had to be a Portland mix, didn't it," Frohike groaned.

"Coulda been quick dry," his helper commented cheerfully. "Settle down. We'll get you outta there, hose you off."

It took three strong men to do it, but they pulled him from the cement with a sucking noise and half-dragged him over to a patch of dirt by the loading dock and turned a hose on him. Mulder staggered up about then, and stared speechlessly at the chaos around them. Another blast of water was followed by a particularly high pitched yell. J. Wayne winced in sympathy; the water had to be cold. 

Mulder shook his head a little, trying not to smile. "I leave you alone for thirty seconds, J. Wayne, and you turn Mel into the world's biggest garden gnome?"

He sighed and made an attempt to explain. 

Mulder managed to suppress most of the snickering, and settled for shaking his head when he was done. "Thanks," he said quietly, watching as Frohike squelched over to them. "I owe you one. Let's go straighten this out."

Mulder waved his badge around, J. Wayne waved his checkbook around, and Frohike paced along the fence with the abandoned briefcases in hand, stiffening gently in the sun.

J. Wayne wrote a big enough check that the suddenly helpful Bobby came across with several bottles of something called Neutralite, which he assured them would keep Frohike from developing contact dermatitis, something most of the older guys didn't seem to think was a big risk anyway. It also seemed to be big enough that Bobby's faux blonde latched five obscenely long cherry-red fingernails onto J. Wayne's upper arm and dropped a phone number into his suit pocket as she invited him to call her "Dawn—or any ol' time". 

As sanity reasserted itself around the warehouse, the three of them stared at each other over the roof of the car.

"J. Wayne," Mulder sighed, "I think you're driving."

Frohike grunted. "Pop the trunk. We've still got some empty garbage bags. I think we've ruined enough rentals this week."

J. Wayne took the keys from Mulder. "Bobby seemed to think we should get you into some clean clothes as soon as possible."

"We'll find a store and you can run in and get me some sweats or something before you have to chisel me out of these jeans." He gazed at Mulder. "And some aspirin for him."

"Fro?" Mulder said sweetly. 

"Oh, God."

"What's the worst that could happen?"

"Forget the aspirin. Let him suffer."

J. Wayne was staring across the parking lot as Frohike dumped the briefcases next to Mulder's muddy jacket in the trunk and arranged the garbage bags across the back seat. He cleared his throat. "They weren't costumes, were they."

"The suits were," Frohike said carefully. 

Mulder sighed and took a garbage bag to spread across the front passenger seat. "The footprints…"

"The concrete was slippery," Frohike interrupted with feeling.

Mulder shrugged, not looking at them. "How slippery, though?"

"Probably not that slippery," Frohike admitted.

"I just want to be clear about what it is we're suggesting, here," J. Wayne began in a reasonable tone.

Frohike brushed at himself again. "I don't," he said firmly. "Not yet, anyhow. Boys, let's get out of here before I turn into lawn art." He paused. "Shut the fuck up, Mulder."

"I didn't say anything!" the agent protested, painfully folding himself into the car.

"You didn't have to," Frohike grumbled. "And stop smirking."

J. Wayne almost laughed. "How'd you know?"

"He always does," came the resigned reply.

**

"What's that noise?"

Langly kept his eyes on the screen. "Probably a car."

"No." Jimmy held up a hand and listened for a moment. "Kind of…"

"Shut up, will you? I think something's happening."

Jimmy's brow furrowed, but he kept his mouth shut. 

"He hasn't been doing anything for a couple of hours now, and all of a sudden he's walking through every room. I don't know what's up. Maybe he's spotted our transmitters."

"I think it's a helicopter."

"What? So what. Jimmy, turn the receiver to the left. Not that much. Shit!"

Down the street, a bright orange VW Beetle had pulled up in front of the house, and Langly heard the front door close.

"He's leaving. Get up there, we'll follow him." He threw Jimmy the keys. "Hurry!"

And then everything went white.

**

Mel threw himself onto the bed. "And then we came back here."

Langly stared. "Are you guys drunk?"

"Bigfoot," Byers said blankly.

J. Wayne shrugged helplessly. "I counted seven of them."

Langly snorted. "Bigfoots? Bigfeet?"

Mulder snickered. "Look at it this way, they could have had Elvis with them."

"Maybe they were just costumes. You know, like team mascots," Jimmy offered.

Frohike grunted. "So why'd you two come back so early?"

Jimmy and Langly exchanged glances. "It's not much better than Bigfeet," Langly admitted, but didn't seem anxious to explain further.

Byers had already heard the story. "The stakeout was called on account of inclement weather."

Frohike propped himself up on one arm. "You guys bugged out because it was raining?"

Jimmy shook his head. "Snow."

Mel blinked. "What?"

"Snow," Jimmy repeated. "We had to shovel the van out."

"Jimmy, where the hell—"

"We heard a helicopter," Langly said. "It was probably airdropped. One of those fire bomber bucket things."

Mulder repositioned an ice pack. "Water spout."

Frohike glared at him. "God, I hate this state."

Langly glared at Fro. "Me too. And someone made me leave my mittens at home."

Frohike closed his eyes. "It's July. How was I supposed to know…"

Byers tried not to laugh. "While they were shoveling the stuff away, though, Payter—or whoever he is—left. They didn't get a chance to follow him."

"Figures. What'd you come up with on the samples, Byers?"

"Well, there was gas residue on the carpet fibers near the base of each door. Basically tetrafluoroethyl difluoromethyl ether," he paused, "that's Desflurane, a fairly standard OR volatile anesthetic. It's expensive, though. I can't imagine what the cost of filling three rooms with it would have been. Not to mention vaporizing it—at room temperature, it's still a liquid. I couldn't find any record of it being administered in such a generalized way. It has a very rapid onset, and wears off very quickly as well."

"Side effects?" Mulder asked. 

"Nothing permanent. There may have been some tachycardia, and there's supposed to be nausea as it wears off, but—"

Frohike grinned in spite of himself. "Didn't notice any of that, myself."

Byers blushed a little. "No. As I said, it was basically Desflurane. There were other components as well, and I haven't begun to sort out what they were. Probably something to make it vaporize better, maybe something to mask the smell, which can be fairly pungent. There may have been another methyl ethyl ether administered with it, but if so it's too degraded to separate out."

Langly snickered. "At least they didn't go with the cheap stuff."

Mel glanced at his watch and stood up. "It's a little after five, so we've got time to get dinner before we go play Where's Weirdo, as long as Mulder doesn't drive, anyhow. After that, we'd probably better see if we can find out where that email came from. And we've got some briefcases in the trunk. They're empty, but we might be able to get some hair, or fur, off of them for analysis. Oh, and Byers, hide all your samples, okay? I don't want to get back to find out they've been replaced with test tubes of mosquito larvae or a shoebox full of wheatback pennies or something."

**

Brother Bill the Righteous welcomed them to his office in a surprisingly deep voice. "We don't often have outsiders among us, but Sister Brother Table," he indicated Sela Loy, "insisted in your case. She feels you might be able to help us resolve some of the issues that have… disturbed our community for so long."

He clapped his hands, and a concealed door opened behind him. An ambulatory gray robe emerged, though the possibility that a very short member was in there somewhere could not be entirely discounted. "Brother Blur, bring some more chairs for our guests."

The robe bobbed and retreated behind the door.

"Brother Blur?" J. Wayne asked politely.

Brother Bill shrugged. "Brother I Don't Know Everything's Blurry, to be precise. His glasses fell off during his initiation rites. We're fairly informal here."

Within moments, Brother Blur returned, pushing a stack of pea-green molded plastic chairs. As they helped arrange them, Loy moved forward and spoke softly in Brother Bill's ear. He listened attentively and nodded. 

Once everyone was settled, Brother Bill motioned Brother Blur toward him. "Agent Mulder, Sister Brother Table tells me you're injured?"

It wasn't exactly a world-class bit of deduction, as he'd limped in. "No big deal," he said quickly. "Minor accident."

Frohike snorted, and Loy leaned over and whispered something else, even more agitated than usual. 

Brother Bill regarded them with something that didn't come close enough to disbelief. "You were attacked by Bigfoot?"

Loy nodded and Frohike sighed. 

"Just someone on the way to a costume party," Mulder said firmly.

Brother Bill's stare went on long enough that Mulder began to fidget. 

"That may be the case," he said eventually. "Would you allow us to assist you? We have a Brother," he waved a hand in the direction of Blur, who disappeared through the door, "he has some small talents in this area."

Mulder looked wary. "I don't really think that's necessary. What was it you wanted to tell us?"

Brother Bill sighed. "Yes. You know our circumstances, I imagine. Almost all of us are regularly taken, often for a few hours, sometimes longer. Experiments… are performed. It's unpleasant, to say the least." He shrugged. "We've taken measures to deprive them of satisfaction, but this harassment has not stopped. At times, as recently, it becomes intolerable."

"Recently?" Byers asked. "With the current wave of sightings?"

"Exactly. The last time there was such an incidence of sightings, a member of our community was taken and not returned to us. That was seven years ago, and we still must deal with the local law enforcement on the subject. They were for a long time convinced we were somehow implicated in her fate. Naturally, we are concerned again."

Frohike scrutinized the man. He seemed to believe what he was saying, but that wouldn't be unusual in a place like this. He remembered that wave fairly well, as they'd put together several stories about it. There had been reports of abductees, but he didn't recall any of them going permanently missing. Still, there was a possibility they were surrounded by nutcases who occasionally ritually sacrificed one of their own. With the police involved, though, there'd be records, and they'd be able to track down the story and get a better picture of what had happened, without antagonizing their hosts. 

"So what do you want from us?" Langly asked.

"We'd like you to speak with your Men In Black."

Mel's jaw dropped. " _Our_ Men In Black?"

Brother Bill shook his head as though disappointed. "Agent Mulder's Men In Black, then."

Mulder stared. "They're not mine, either."

"Friends. Please. It's been apparent to us for a long time that these men are agents of our government. Agent Mulder, it's inconceivable that you could have carried through your career without their approval and aid. Please talk to them for us."

"I don't—"

"Agent Mulder. Please. We'll give you whatever you want. We are not without resources." His expression tightened. "We simply can't endure this any longer."

Frohike found his voice. "Suppose… Suppose Agent Mulder could contact these men. What would you like him to say to them?"

Brother Bill relaxed minutely. "We would like you to tell them that we have been documenting this harassment for the past decade. We've amassed an extensive collection of medical records, videotape, audiotape, seismic readings, and other information. We're prepared to release this information to the world if we are not left alone."

J. Wayne blinked. "You want us to blackmail the Men In Black for you?"

Brother Bill shrugged. "If we could talk to them ourselves, we would. We'd have preferred not to involve… reporters. But then, it may turn out that we need reporters."

Byers sighed. "And that's what's in it for us."

The man inclined his head in a gesture of assent. 

Langly shook his head. "What is?"

"An exclusive," Frohike said cynically. "If we keep our mouths shut and do what he wants, we get this… mountain of documentation when they decide to release it—for whatever reason."

Brother Bill smiled faintly. "Yes."

"So what's to stop us," Mel asked, "from double-crossing you? From agreeing, not talking to the MIB—assuming we even can—and getting the scoop when you decide they're not going for it?"

"You're men of honor."

Langly snorted. "And you know this how?"

Brother Bill spread his hands. "We've done our research. We feel we can trust you." He paused. "And we feel we don't have any other choices. But to answer your question, we _do_ have information we can give you now, and as time goes on, we'll have more information we can safely release to you. Beyond that, as I said, we have resources. Tell us what you need."

"Just like that," Langly said.

"Just like that." He leaned forward intently. "To be honest, friends, we would give anything to be rid of this nightmare."

Mulder shook his head finally. "We can't help you. I'm sorry. I would if I could, but as far as I know the MIB have nothing to do with the government, and I don't know that they have that kind of control over the abductions, either."

Brother Bill nodded, but didn't seem upset. "Sometimes the seeds we plant lie dormant. And sometimes they sprout in the darkness." He sat up abruptly. "But enough of this. I know you'll do the right thing." He made a small gesture at Loy, who went through the door, returning in seconds with a thin, pale man, moving with a hunching posture beneath his loose robes. 

"This is Brother Sweet Gum Tree. He has the gift of healing," said Brother Bill. "It was bestowed by our kidnappers."

Byers focused sharply on the shape under the robe, a speculative tilt to his head. 

"Please let him heal you, Agent Mulder. Sister Brother Table feels you will all need to be at your best tonight."

"That doesn't sound good," Langly muttered.

Frohike had caught Byers' expression and nodded at Mulder. "Go ahead. I'd like to see this."

The man knelt in front of Mulder's chair, and pale hands pushed the hood back, revealing a gaunt face with paler skin stretched thin over fine bones. The dark circles under his eyes were even more pronounced than seemed to be normal for the Brotherhood, but he at least didn't share the same jitters. 

Without being told, he placed delicate fingers across Mulder's injured knee, making the agent wince. 

"Close your eyes," he instructed, sounding tired. "Imagine yourself surrounded by blue."

"Blue what?" 

"Just blue," he said. 

Mulder shrugged and closed his eyes without comment. 

Before anyone could rise from their seats to stop him, the man had pulled back and slammed both fists together against the side of Mulder's knee. 

**

Mulder's profanities had become repetitious as he hobbled to the sidewalk in front of the compound. 

"Look, Mulder, how were we supposed to know?"

The agent glared at Frohike. "As soon as I can move again, I'm going to kick your ass."

Frohike sighed and shifted the dead weight onto the other Gunmen. "Langly, you and Jimmy stay here with Mulder. I'll bring the van around."

The agent muttered something under his breath.

"Look, sorry, buddy, but I thought maybe we'd found our nocturnal visitors."

Byers colored slightly. "It seemed like a reasonable possibility."

"Oh, well, I'm relieved to know I've been maimed in the name of scientific inquiry."

**

A long, hot bath had finally shut Mulder up for the most part. Frohike peered in the doorway. "Is it safe for me to come in?"

Mulder heaved a sigh. "Possibly."

"I brought you something."

Mulder squinted through the steam. "It'd better be good."

"Double chocolate cherry cupcakes."

"You brought me cupcakes?"

Mel grinned. "Not just any cupcakes."

There was a silence. "Fro?"

"Yes?"

"You found Sugar Land, didn't you."

The Gunman laughed. "They've even got little dribbles of cream cheese on the tops. I got the party platter."

Mulder smirked. "Enough to share."

"Just don't offer any to Langly."

Mulder laughed and stretched. "It actually doesn't seem to hurt as much anymore."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah. Weird."

Frohike tossed him a towel. "Well, they did say you'd need to be at your best tonight."

"Aren't I always?"

The phone rang in the next room and someone knocked at the adjoining door.

Mulder grinned. "If that's the kid, tell him we've got… finger food. Tell him to bring napkins."

**

Frohike sighed, scanning the instruments. "Mulder, what the hell are we doing out here?"

Mulder shrugged. "Hell if I know, Frohike. You're the one who's convinced Sela's a legitimate psychic. I still think they're orchestrating all of this."

"Well, if they're putting on a show, we might as well watch."

Mulder grumbled under his breath.

"At least we got the van. That barn looks like it's got bats."

Mulder grinned lazily. "You didn't mind the bats in Indiana."

"Fight it down, Mulder."

"So what do you suppose they're doing out here, anyway?"

"Transgenic, maybe. Experimental strain, I suppose. But that's a pretty big buffer they've got around this field, so I'd put my money on transgenic."

The door slid open quietly. "Still nothing," J. Wayne said, crawling in. "A couple of cars went past the lane from the west but didn't stop. I spotted Jimmy, though, sneaking around the outside of the fence."

"No surprise there. He doesn't know the meaning of the word stealth."

Mulder laughed quietly. "Still, if you gotta spend a night watching a cornfield in the middle of nowhere, at least it's a nice night for it."

"Check in with the boys, will you? Get them to bring Jimmy back in so he doesn't scare our friends off."

Mulder nodded and picked up the headset for the two-way communications system. He fiddled with it for a while and then looked up. "Just static. You guys and your cheap equipment."

"It was working perfectly this morning, Mulder. You're not using it right."

"Look, I'm doing exactly what you showed me—"

J. Wayne moved over to help. 

"Hang on," Mel said urgently. "I've got blobs on the thermal."

**

"Langly, wake up." Byers hissed.

The blond took a moment to orient himself. "What are we doing in a barn?"

"Roll in the hay. Take a look at that." He pointed as Langly groped for his glasses.

Langly unceremoniously shoved them up his nose and followed Byers' finger, doing a double take. "What the hell?"

Small lights were bobbing around the field below them. They seemed to define geometrics in the same way that stars define constellations. Langly grabbed for the night-vision goggles and focused. "Shit."

"Yeah," Byers agreed dispiritedly. 

"Hoaxers," Langly said flatly.

Jimmy climbed up the ladder again. "There were a couple of cars, they pulled off down behind that pond. Some guys got out, with bags, and cut the padlock on that gate. I don't think they saw me."

Byers nodded, staring intently into the field. "We know, Jimmy. They divided into three groups and are making a triangle and two circles out there." He shook his head. "I tried to get the others, but the radio's not working right."

Langly pulled on a headset and held the button down to a burst of static. "Mulder probably screwed it up. How many guys, Jimmy?"

"It was kinda hard to tell in the dark. I think I counted ten. They were all dressed in black."

Langly and Byers exchanged looks. "You think?"

Byers shrugged. "I'm not sure what the point of it would be. Glyphs attract attention, stir up the press."

Langly sighed. "Well, I guess anybody making circles at night would wear black anyway. I mean, _we_ are. At least it's not aliens."

Jimmy peered out from the loft. "So the whole thing's a hoax?"

Byers thought about it. "The circles are, obviously. But I honestly don't know how they could have hoaxed the oranges. There was no trace of any incendiary material."

Langly stood and stretched. "Let's go ask."

**

J. Wayne pulled the door open. "The guys just left the barn. Something's up."

Frohike nodded. "There's definitely something going on in the field."

"Something what?"

"I'm not sure. There's not really enough signature for humans, but I don't know what else it could be."

Mulder shrugged. "Raccoons?"

"Or aliens. Maybe our sharp-dressed friends aren't human after all."

Mulder looked thoughtful as he pulled on the headset again and checked another monitor. "No lights in the sky, though. Whatever's happening is at ground level."

"People, then. Maybe the scope's malfunctioning like the radio is. You're sure nobody came?"

J. Wayne shook his head. "If they pulled in past the pond, and walked through the woods, I wouldn't have seen them. We were expecting them to use that break in the fence, remember."

Mulder looked at Frohike and shrugged. "Still static. I think we'd better get out there."

Frohike was already grabbing gear. "J. Wayne, stay here, try to get the radio working. I'd like to know what's going on before we barge in."

"You circle around from the west, Mel. I'll try to come in on the other side." He took a deep breath. "Christ, I'm glad Scully isn't here for this. Another cornfield? She'd never forgive me."

Mel gave him a worried once-over. "Are you okay to do this?"

Mulder set his jaw. "Let's go."

**

They split up as they approached the clearing. Byers pushed quietly through the corn. He found himself on the edge of a large circle, with nearly a dozen people scattered around with boards on ropes. Two men were consulting a map with the help of a small penlight while a third called out numbers along a rope tied to a pole in the center of the clearing. One of them waved an arm toward the farthest triangle and looked up, straight at John. 

He stared for a moment and then screamed "Abort!" The workers dropped their tools and scattered into the darkness. 

"Wait!" he heard Langly yell in the distance. "Dammit!"

There was a scuffle to his left and then Jimmy shouted. "Got one!" He headed over.

Langly hurried up behind him, holding a map and a big silver tube. "They left this. It's a Pulsar red laser." He flashed it on and off. "That's good scattering. This is pretty organized for a hoax, you know?"

Jimmy held a man by the scruff of his collar. There were bits of leaf in his dark hair, his black face paint smeared and black tracksuit covered in dirt and pollen. He was wearing safety goggles with thick, streaky lenses.

"What hoax?" the man demanded in outrage.

They were slightly taken aback. "The circles here. Obviously you're making them."

"So?"

"Well, so…" Langly trailed off, looking helplessly at Byers.

"So why?" Byers asked. "Why go to all the trouble?"

"They make the circles to communicate with us," he said, as though that should have been clear to even the most deranged moron. 

"But you're making this one."

"To communicate with them. To let them know we're listening."

Byers considered it. "Why do it like this? At night, in secret?"

"We don't own the field."

"Oh."

Langly cleared his throat. "So you've, uh, cracked their code? You know what they're saying?"

The man looked embarrassed. "Not yet, but we're working on it."

"Do you know what _you're_ telling _them_?" Langly persisted.

"Not really. We just want them to know we're listening."

"So, for all you know, you could be creeping out here in the dead of night and ruining some scientist's experiment to make a giant billboard that says 'Good Eats'."

The man huffed. "I resent that. There's no reason to believe that they intend to invade us, let alone that they regard humans as livestock. An enlightened civilization like theirs would be vegetarian, naturally."

Byers sighed. "We'll leave you to it, then. Let him go, Jimmy."

They ran into Frohike in the narrow alley between the two triangles. 

"What's going on?"

"It's just people."

He threw up his hands in exasperation. "It's a hoax?"

Byers shook his head and explained briefly. "It's a UFO cargo cult. I suppose it had to happen sooner or later."

Frohike groaned. "We might as well take off, then. Did you see Mulder?"

"No. He came out?"

"Yeah. He went around the other side. We'd better go find him."

"Knowing Mulder, he's probably lost."

"Did he take one of the headsets?"

"Yeah, but they weren't working."

Byers frowned. "I thought it was just ours."

"No. A few minutes before they turned up, we started getting static."

Langly stopped. "That's weird. You think there might be something else going on?"

"Maybe."

Byers looked thoughtful. "That laser was sophisticated equipment. Maybe they have a jammer, too."

Langly shook his head. "Why? They didn't expect to see us. Anyway, you'd think they'd find communications gear useful, too."

Byers frowned. "We should have held onto him, I guess."

"And that laser," Langly muttered.

"We're making a lot of dumb mistakes," Mel sighed. "I think we've been in this state too long. Langly, you and Jimmy get the gear from the barn. Byers, let's find Mulder." He turned and headed off. "We need to get the hell out of here before someone calls the cops."

Byers fiddled with his headset again. "With all the commotion, it's a wonder they're not here already."

Frohike grinned as he pushed a stand of corn aside. "Gotta admit, I'd hate to be the guy carrying that laser when they show up."

"I'm not sure the NVG are going to be any easier to explain."

Frohike stopped abruptly. "Did you leave the tackle box in the van?"

Byers managed not to plow into him. "I haven't touched—" He swallowed. "Oh, God. We'd better find Mulder fast."

Frohike nodded grimly and charged off, only to slam into a small woman in a green pith helmet. 

They went down in a tangle of limbs, and the woman started screaming and beating him with her fists. 

"Get her off me!"

Byers reached down and pulled her to the side, causing her to start hitting him instead. Frohike sat up and threw his arms around her. 

"Cut it out!" 

She managed to twist around and screamed in his ear. "Monster!" 

"Lady, enough!" Frohike roared. 

She yanked herself free and scrabbled on the ground for her flashlight. She flicked on an odd blue beam. 

Frohike flinched away from it, and she let it linger for a moment before it danced on to Byers. "Who the hell are you?"

Frohike straightened his glasses. "The people you just assaulted. Who the hell are you?"

Byers brushed the earth off his sweater. "Well, if the cops hadn't been called before, they're on their way now. Perhaps we could continue this discussion somewhere else?"

"I guess there's no point in stealth now." Frohike opened his mouth to yell for Mulder and shut it again with a snap. "We should have come up with code names."

"Try yelling 'Fox'. They'll think it's someone in the woods."

"He'd kill me." He grabbed the woman by the arm and started off again toward the van. "You're coming with us, miss. I wanna know what's going on."

There was a rustle behind them, and another woman flung herself on top of Byers, knocking him down. "Let go of her, you freaks!"

The first woman helped Mel pry her off. "Stop it! They're human!"

Byers sat up, blinking, as two more women, in green helmets and face paint and matching baggy pants and tunics, emerged from the corn with blue lights. "Who _are_ you people?" 

"Look," Frohike said loudly. "If you ladies want to hang around and wait for the cops, fine. But we're getting out of here!"

He pulled Byers to his feet and headed off again. "There's a flashlight over there. It might be Mulder."

"BYYYYYERS! Where are ya!" 

"Jimmy," they said together.

Frohike hurried forward. "Shut up, dummy. You want to get us arrested?"

"Where's Langly?"

Jimmy looked around. "He was right behind me. He must have gotten lost."

"What about Mulder?"

"What about him?"

"You haven't seen him?"

Jimmy looked confused. "He was with you, right?"

"And Langly was with you," Mel snarled. "Forget the code names. Next time I'm pinning homing devices on everyone."

"We don't have time for this," Byers warned. "Jimmy, get back to the van. See if Langly or Mulder are there. If they are, honk the horn a few times. Okay?"

Jimmy nodded. "What if only one of them's there?"

"Honk anyhow," Frohike instructed. "At least it'll help 'em find it."

"Okay." He disappeared into the rows.

"What if they're not there, Mel?"

Another blue light hit them. "Over there! Get them!"

Frohike looked panicked. "Run!"

They both took off, unfortunately in different directions. Byers moved directly through the corn, knowing it left a trail but hoping it'd keep him from being spotted in a row. A couple of times he caught glimpses of bodies in dark clothes, but none were tall enough to be Langly or Mulder. Frohike pelted along a row, breaking into a clearing where several of the women in the helmets were holding onto three of the circle makers. 

"It's another one!"

"Oh, no," he moaned, and took off in the opposite direction, hearing them give chase. He glanced behind himself and promptly tripped over part of a tripod, sending him sprawling.

"Mel?" someone said in disbelief.

** 

Langly had almost been tackled by some crazy chick who came out of nowhere, and had gotten turned around. He figured he was so lost by now the only thing that would help was his compass. He flipped on his flashlight to read it. 

"Langly?" someone said in disbelief.

**

Byers was sure he was near the van, but he'd have to move into a row to see. He slipped through, trying to be quiet. Something caught his arm. 

"John Byers?" someone said in disbelief.

**

Mulder was wondering if moss grew on the north sides of corn stalks, when there was a rustle behind him. 

"Agent Mulder?" someone said in disbelief.

**

J. Wayne leaned on the horn. 

"They said only do that if Langly or Mulder was here," Jimmy protested.

"Hopefully they'll all hear it and come this way. Is the radio working yet?"

"Still static, but I might be doing it wrong."

J. Wayne moved back to help, and the door slid open.

"Jimmy?" someone said in disbelief.

And _then_ there were lights in the sky.

**

"So you five were just out here minding your own business."

Frohike sighed, ignoring the plastic restraints cutting into his wrists. "Look, we're reporters. We got a tip, and we came out."

"A tip about what?"

"I don't imagine you're going to like this," said Ian Drose. "But we heard a group was going to be making a crop circle here." He and the other members of _The Smoking Gun_ had been startled to see Frohike stumble out of the corn, but there hadn't been time for a reunion. A helicopter fixed them with a searchlight and within moments they were rounded up by a team of exasperated police. 

The man gave him the hairy eyeball. "A crop circle."

_The Smoking Gun_ 's resident crop circle expert, Masashi Katahira, elaborated. "It's a type of formation usually—"

The man cut him off. "I know what a crop circle is. What I don't know is if you people expect me to believe this garbage."

Nick Trebaczewski, the youngest member of the team, shifted nervously. "Your helicopter should be able to spot some of them from the air."

The man glared. "Oh, believe me, we've got it out there looking. And you're telling me that it's not going to spot, for example, any patches of contraband plants that just happen to somehow be out there?"

"Certainly not," Drose said indignantly. "We're reporters. We do not use controlled substances."

Marvel snorted quietly, earning fresh scrutiny.

"So why exactly didn't you bother to get permission from the university to set up cameras here? They might not like reporters in their experimental fields."

Before they could answer, four more people were herded into the headlights of the police cars. "Found them over on the south edge," said a grimy and sweat-streaked uniform.

Mel winced. Two of the new guys had planks strung around their necks with ropes, and the other two were members of the press, specifically an Arkansas outfit called _Flap_. 

"Who are they?" asked their irritated keeper.

"No ID."

He glared at the newcomers too. "I suppose you're reporters, too."

Steve Helder nodded. "Exactly, officer."

"Captain."

"Sorry, Captain."

"Are we going to find anyone else out there?"

Frohike sighed. "There are other members of our team working in the field, yes."

"But nowhere near these plots of illicit plants which we're of course not going to find," the captain said sarcastically.

One of the circle makers looked blank. "There's nothing out there but corn."

"And reporters," one of the officers said, rubbing at the grime on his face.

The captain turned to a uniform. "Put them in the wagon and read them their rights. We'll hold them on trespassing until we get some straight answers."

"These two were parked in a van out that way," interrupted a new uniformed officer, pushing Jimmy and J. Wayne before her. "There's all kind of weird stuff in there."

"Grow-op?" The captain asked.

"No… It looks more like science equipment. Radio stuff, maybe."

"IDs?"

"No, but they could be somewhere in the vehicle. We haven't had a chance to look."

A commotion at the edge of the lights, and seven more people were pushed into view, half of them women in helmets.

Langly tried a feeble wave with his bound hands. "These guys think we're harvesting pot!" he announced angrily. 

Marvel almost giggled, and Drose elbowed him, as another five people joined the group. 

Byers sighed faintly and went to stand beside Langly as the newest policeman dropped the laser next to the other equipment. 

"These two were fighting over this," he said, pointing to the woman who had called Mel a monster, and the apparent leader of the circle makers. "And we ran into them on the way here," he added, gesturing at Byers and Larch Redlund. 

The captain nudged it with his foot. "What is this, some kind of weapon? You people are all in big trouble."

"It's not a weapon," the man said. "It's a laser. It helps us make straight lines."

The woman had joined her friends. "Terrorists!"

Things went downhill from there.

**

"So," the captain announced to the room in general. "We have twenty-one assorted journalists, eleven guys with lasers and wooden planks, seventeen ninja women, and two kids who probably had nothing to do with this but just picked the wrong place to neck." He sighed. "Not to mention two vans, four SUVs, and three cars, two of them rented. And a pile of weird equipment."

His lieutenant nodded. "And as far as we can tell, no pot plants, but a couple of big triangles and part of a circle smashed down in the middle of an experimental cornfield."

The captain massaged his temples. "Has anyone from the university gotten back to us yet?"

"No. We left messages everywhere, I guess they'll call when they get in in the morning. It's Sunday, after all. But as far as we can tell, none of these folks are employed by them in any capacity."

"What about the lady who was yelling about terrorism? She seemed pretty upset about the damage. Do we have some weird experiment and a bunch of ecoterrorists or something?"

The officer who had taken her statement rolled his eyes. "She's nuts, Captain. She says the guys with the boards and lasers are, uh, space aliens, like giant bugs, in the bodies of humans, who make these corn circle things to signal the mothership. She says you can tell by shining those weird blue flashlights on 'em."

There was a long silence. "You got drug tests?"

"Yeah. All of them came up clean for most everything on the initial tests. We had some alcohol, but none pegged the breathalyzer." He shrugged. "But all of those folks are so freaky it wouldn't surprise me if they were all on some drug that we just don't test for."

Someone snickered. "And we're sure the circle guys aren't alien bugs?"

The captain glared. "Okay, so the lasers. This definitely isn't about terrorism? I'm getting calls already."

The lieutenant shook his head. "One of the tech guys downstairs looked at them and says they're probably harmless. You could probably use them to bring down a small plane if you tried hard enough, but there aren't any flight patterns near that field. He says they're good for astronomy, and that's about it."

"What's he think about their story?"

The lieutenant shrugged. "He says it'd be pretty easy to use them for making crop circles, assuming you're that kind of crazy."

"Have the journalists checked out with their organizations?"

An officer rolled her eyes. "About half of them. The four from," she sighed, " _The Smoking Gun_ , the two from Washington Watches, that's not a newspaper, it's just some weird UFO outfit, and the three from _Fortean Times_ , which is some kind of magazine."

"And the tip we got?"

"The call came from a pay phone in the lobby of a Best Western hotel. You want us to follow up?"

He regarded them all for a long, silent moment. "You know what I want? I want to know what the hell is going on here!" The last few words came out with some volume.

The door opened. "I think I can answer that," Mulder said casually, stepping into the room and showing his credentials. "FBI."

**

Josh Rosenberg shook his head. "Still nothing."

Chuck Allen sat up and rubbed his eyes. "I still don't know why we're out here. That woman is crazy."

Pete Dodden sighed from the back seat. "Yeah, the thing with the Cube was kind of a tip off."

"So why are we here again?" Allen asked for the fifth time.

Rosenberg shrugged. "Well, aside from those crap pictures, the only way into this is following the other guys around."

"Gunman is onto something, we all know it. Following them is our best bet."

Rosenberg grimaced. "It may come to that, but I'd like to avoid it, really. They play dirty."

Allen snickered. "So does Mulder."

They grinned at each other. "Do you suppose he knows Len's in town yet?"

Dodden looked uncomfortable. "I didn't like the way he laughed when you told him Mulder was here."

Allen snickered again. "Just having a little fun. Mulder and Tasche deserve some quality time together."

Rosenberg leaned closer to the windshield. "What the hell?"

Allen snapped his fingers at Dodden. "Camera."

Dodden was staring intently at two glowing orange balls in the night sky hovering just above the hill they'd been watching. 

Rosenberg gasped as trails of fire began to fall from each object. "They're going to crash!"

"Camera," Allen said impatiently. 

Dodden sighed. "Don't bother."

"Pete, give me the fucking camera right now!"

Rosenberg half-turned in his seat so he could see both of them and still keep an eye on the balls, now starting to sink. "Okay, Pete. What are they?"

"Garbage bags."

"What?" Allen hit the roof, literally.

"I know it looks creepy, but it's a hoax, believe me. You take a big plastic garbage bag, lightweight, preferably white, and you tape a candle inside it. You light the candle, and hold the bottom of the bag up until it starts to fill with hot air. Then you let go. It's like a balloon. When the candle melts the bag, it starts to catch on fire, and you get dripping streams of burning plastic. That's what causes that 'fuel trail' effect. The plastic burns as it falls. It looks good, really good. Presto, instant UFO."

Allen shook his head. "Man. I thought we were onto something this time."

Rosenberg sighed faintly. "You take a lot of the fun out of this, Pete."

Dodden shrugged. "Sorry. They're just garbage bags."

Rosenberg put the keys in the ignition. "Let's call it a night."

**

"Those people were nuts," Mel grumbled in the impound lot. 

"No argument there," Marvel snickered.

Drose sighed and leaned against the fence while the officer on duty found their paperwork. "My thanks for a timely rescue, Agent Mulder. Though I'm aware we're merely collateral saves. I imagine the same thing happened to us as happened to you. The Brotherhood of Pragmatic Resistance gave you a tip?"

The assorted journalists and UFOlogists nodded. 

"I'm gonna get that woman," Langly snarled. 

Redlund looked up. "Loy?"

Byers nodded tiredly. 

Steve Helder and Letisha LaSalle of _Flap_ exchanged glances. "We got tipped by a Brother Sweet Gum."

The rest of the professionals nodded.

"He got a hundred bucks out of us," added Darcy Patterson. 

Her partner Bets stuck out her tongue. "You can't trust men."

Mulder grinned. "And after I rescued you and everything."

"How'd you get here, anyhow?" Frohike asked, signing for the keys. "They impounded everybody's cars."

Mulder grimaced. "Not everybody's," he said quietly. "I hitched a ride with Celestiya Cayce. They snagged Julian out in the field, but missed her and the Jeep."

Frohike glanced up and tried not to smirk at the expression on Mulder's face. Mulder had years ago made plain his aversion to spending time alone with "that Cayce woman", and it hadn't been a short ride to the precinct from the field. Mel had a feeling he was going to get an earful later. Mulder was starting to limp slightly again, he noticed. Everybody needed sleep, obviously, though he honestly wasn't sure how easily anybody would after last night.

He sighed and tossed the keys to Byers and moved out of the way so Bets could hand over her paperwork. "Let's go home."

Bets hip-checked him, giggling. "Is that an open invitation?"

Mulder slipped an arm around her waist, grinning. "Sure. We've got… cupcakes."

Frohike snorted. "Not her style. C'mon, let's get out of here before the cops turn the freaks loose."

Ellis laughed. "The rest of them, anyway."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next Up: Caffeine, Conspiracies, and the Fortean Nature of Fishes XII: Up the Data Stream Without a Paddle: In which the guys guard an unlikely abduction target, which leads to a lot of trouble and a visit to the vet. Meanwhile, Bigfoot is spotted. Again.


	12. Up The Data Stream Without A Paddle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eight-legged freaks and bipedal lunatics.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I continue to exploit and offend without permission. My most sincere apologies to the Seattle Aquarium, and I promise I've never actually done any of this stuff, really. I feel compelled to make it absolutely clear that I am in no way encouraging people to break into the Seattle Aquarium for the purposes of having sex in the Undersea Dome. However, I am also aware that I don't have to encourage that sort of thing, in that it really pretty much sells itself. It's probably also worth pointing out that for plot purposes, or smut purposes, anyway, I've played with the floor plan of the aquarium. (If you're going to have sex in the Seattle Aquarium, I think we can all agree that it has to happen in the Dome.) I'm also lying about their security, and pretending they have no night staff. I promise you they do. Please don't break in. The Rather Fetching Betty, my beloved beta reader, was always aware he was going to make this cameo and generally approved of it. The sex that follows, not so much. I think he likes it with more conversation. And of course Byers is fine. He's just having a little reaction. Despite the fact that I bash just about everybody around a bit in this episode, they're all fine too. Or will be. And it should be pretty obvious that what's in the tackle box is the Modeski Formula. I do apologize for the tone, though. And man do I ever apologize for the length. This is what happens when your literary masochist beta safewords on you, and then moves. As it is, I cut out most of the scenes that didn't involve the Gunmen, but you may safely assume that Pete is still telling Chuck and Josh What's Wrong With This Picture and annoying the hell out of them. You can assume everyone else is sleeping off last night, too, if you want, and then spending the rest of the day taking in the Space Needle and the Arboretum. Whatever. This all means I cut out the extremely convoluted scenes in which Pete explains data-steaming, so here's a short explainer: The guys are data-streaming. Sela Loy keeps offering them tips that aren't actually helpful, but which seem important or at least related, and accurate. So they keep listening to her, staying in her data stream. Shit, hard to imagine I needed two scenes and three pages to say that. It wasn't even funny. Further parts continue to pend, so revoke my aquarium memberships early and avoid the rush.
> 
> Also, I don't generally do this, but if anyone's actually reading this, rather than clicking in, reading a few lines, and clicking away, a little feedback of any sort would be hugely appreciated. Thanks and I'm sorry this took so long.

**

 

By about five on Monday morning, almost everyone had finally settled into the sleep of the innocent, or at least the sleep of the booked-but-not-arraigned. So whoever was knocking on the door of the room shared by Byers and Langly had to put considerably more effort into it than he’d probably planned.

“Jimmy?” Langly mumbled without bothering to take the pillow off his face.

Byers cracked an eye and tried to orient himself. “Front door.”

Langly rolled over and looked at the clock. “Damn, it’s five fifteen.” He scowled, putting his glasses on and stumbling to his feet. “Better not be the maid.”

Byers woke up enough to hook a finger into the back of Langly’s shorts as he tried to pass. He flipped on the table lamp. “Hold on. It’s not the maid, and I want to know who it is before we open the door.”

Langly was startled for a moment, but shook his head. “The MIB don’t bother to knock. Probably just Fro or Mulder.”

Byers raised an eyebrow as the knocking continued. “Why wouldn’t they just call?”

Langly shrugged and grinned at a sudden thought. “Maybe it’s Drose and Marvel looking for Jimmy. Or Bigfoot, looking for Mel.”

Byers didn’t smile. “Look before you unlock, that’s all I’m saying.”

Langly sighed, but with that in mind peered through the peephole. Their visitor showed no signs of giving up, so he crooked a finger at Byers, who was buttoning his shirt. Byers took a quick look, and then a second, longer one. He turned back to Langly, confusion plain on his face. Langly shrugged and pulled on his jeans. “Might as well let him in.”

Byers sighed and pulled the bolt. “Brother… Sweet Gum Tree, was it?”

The man shrank back as though he’d been attacked, not merely identified. “How’d you know it was me?” he demanded, glancing down the corridor.

Langly rolled his eyes. “It wasn’t hard. The robe kind of gave it away, really.”

“But with the mustache… They told me at the shop that my own mother would mistake me for John Stossel.”

Byers winced and pulled him inside. “Not so much.”

The Brother pushed back his hood and looked himself up and down, finally saying seriously, “It’s the sunglasses, isn’t it.”

Langly blinked. “No, man. Really, you need to lose the robe.”

Brother Tree looked skeptical. “Maybe. But I think the sunglasses are the bigger problem. I wasn’t sure about that. If you wear them at night, you look like you’re in disguise.”

“Yeah, whatever. Speaking of which, you do know it’s five thirty in the morning, right?”

The pale features twitched slightly. “I don’t sleep much anymore.”

Langly stalked over to the bed and threw himself onto it. “Well, we _do_.”

Byers pushed the man into a chair and switched on another lamp. “Also, we went to bed late. We spent most of the evening in a cornfield, and the rest of it in a police station.”

Langly lifted his head up enough to fix Brother Tree with a fierce glare. “You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that.”

He didn’t blush, exactly, Byers wasn’t convinced the man had enough blood to do that. But a faint pink appeared briefly. “I—Uh, yeah. You got arrested? Did the rest of them, too?”

“More sort of… rounded up. How many people did you tell, and why? For the money?”

“And why’d you tell the cops?” Langly demanded.

“What? I didn’t. All right, so I overheard Sister Brother Table, and yeah, I told some of the reporters who’d come by earlier. But I didn’t get you guys arrested, I swear!”

He sounded honest enough, but they all did. That was part of the trouble. The Brotherhood people were weird as hell, but after looking into them the Gunmen had just about catalogued them as flaky-but-harmless. They seemed sincere enough, but whether they knew anything or just thought they knew anything had been debated but not resolved.

Byers caught Langly’s eyes as he shrugged slightly. Half the people they’d met out here were so far off the scale that even their normally solid journalistic instincts seemed unreliable. He was reminded again of why he preferred watchdog news to UFOs.

Langly crossed his arms over his chest and assumed the expression that worked so well when Jimmy accidentally deleted the new layout. Byers sat on the edge of the bed and prepared to be Good Cop again. Good Reporter, anyway.

“Okay, so who did you tell?”

“And why?” Byers asked again.

“Well…”

“Well?” Langly challenged him.

“Yeah, okay. I told…a few people. But you’re all reporters, and anyway Brother Bill and Sister Brother Table were only telling you guys, and that didn’t seem fair, so I thought the rest of them should know too.” It came out in a rush. Byers wasn’t impressed, and neither, it seemed, was Langly.

“So you gave away our tip to half the reporters in the state because it seemed _fairer_?”

“More fair,” Byers murmured.

Langly glared at him. “Whatever. This was all about ethics in journalism?”

Byers leaned forward, putting himself between the two men. “Perhaps there was a little more to it than that?” he asked mildly. “A small token of respect, maybe.”

“What?” He sounded baffled.

Langly leaned around Byers and made the universal fingers-and-thumb gesture.

“Oh! You mean money.”

Byers sighed. “Yes. Money.”

“Well, some. That wasn’t why, though. That was just…”

“A few pieces of silver?” Langly snarled.

Byers shifted away from his colleague in case of sudden lightning bolts. “Calm down, Langly. It’s hardly a _betrayal_ ,” Good Reporter said. “He didn’t owe us anything, he barely knows us.”

“Yeah, well, now he owes us an explanation. He can start with why he’s keeping us awake.”

Byers shrugged. “He does have a point.”

The Brother frowned. “It’s about your deal with Brother Bill.”

“Whoa,” Langly said. “We didn’t make any deals.”

He nodded. “I know. We all knew less than an hour after you left. There was a lot of disappointment.”

Byers sighed. The man reminded him too much of Max Fenig. “I’m sorry about that. Believe me, we'd help if we could. But there really isn’t anything we can do.”

“I’ve read your paper. Sister Brother Table got them for all of the reporters before they decided to make the offer to you guys.”

Byers and Langly exchanged glances. “And?”

“Some of that stuff,” said Brother Sweet Gum very seriously, “makes you guys sound a little crazy.”

Langly slumped back into his chair, a disgusted look on his face.

“We’ll take that under advisement,” Byers said, sighing faintly. “That’s what you came here and woke us up for?”

”No.” He hesitated. “Look, you guys are journalists. Real ones, I mean. And Brother Bill thinks you’ll do stuff just for money, but you won’t. Not like some of the other guys. Not like the guys from _Rainbow_.”

Byers was startled. “You talked to _Rainbow_?” He could feel Langly’s puzzled look.

“Yeah, some guy, Jerry something.”

"Jeremy?"

"I think so, yeah."

“You told him about the cornfield?”

“Yeah. Well, I was telling everyone Brother Bill talked to.”

“ _Rainbow_ wasn’t out there, John. They didn’t get arrested, and I don’t think anybody saw them.”

Byers nodded. “That’s interesting, isn’t it. And Len Tasche is in town.”

It took Langly a minute to work it out. “Len’s our police tipster, you think?”

“It seems pretty likely. Mulder’s going to kill him.” He turned back to Brother Tree, who wasn’t following but it didn’t matter. “So you don’t think we’re in it for the money, a rather obvious assessment if you don’t mind my saying so. Brother Bill offered us information as well. If we wouldn’t do it for that, what makes you think we can do it at all?”

“I can give you something better.”

“Great. An interview with Bigfoot?” Langly asked, sarcasm dripping from it.

Brother Tree blinked. “Bigfoot's fake.”

“So we’ve been told,” Byers murmured, standing up. He went over to pluck Langly's cell phone from the dresser. “You wouldn’t happen to know anything about where Jimmy Hoffa is?”

“Or about snow in Tacoma in July?”

“Do you know how crazy you sound?” asked a man wearing a fake mustache and a gray ceremonial robe.

Langly rolled his eyes. “Pot, kettle.”

Byers checked the battery. Langly’d forgotten to plug it in again, it seemed. “It’s been a long week,” he said wearily. “Be grateful we’re not asking for Elvis.”

“You guys just want to meet him? Or an interview.”

Langly snickered. “Do we need a translator, or does Bigfoot speak English?”

“Bigfoot isn’t real,” he said impatiently. “Elvis. But he might not go on the record.”

The journalists were still for a long moment.

“Say that again.” Byers instructed distantly.

Brother Tree caught their interest. “If I can help you meet him, will you talk to the Men In Black about making all this alien stuff stop?” He shook his head. “You have no idea how much this stuff sucks. I want my life back, you know? I just want it to stop. I used to have a normal life, and now it's like this, not sleeping and weapons practice and living with these freaks.”

Langly let out a snort of laughter. “Yeah, right. Maybe you were on a saucer at the time so you didn’t hear, but Elvis is dead, man.”

Good Reporter knew when to give Bad Reporter some room to work. Byers busied himself with the Gauss meter Frohike’d left out earlier. It wasn’t really like Frohike to be careless with the equipment, but everybody was acting strange lately.

“You guys are full of shit,” Langly went on as Byers listened with mostly professional interest. “You wake us up to tell us about some Elvis impersonator? After you got us arrested?”

“That wasn’t their fault, Langly. Not… directly.” He tried to sound as though he could be persuaded on the issue of blame, which wasn't hard. He hoped Langly wouldn’t start pacing. There was quite a difference between an off-balance informant and an empty chair where your informant was before he fled, and the Brotherhood people seemed pretty jittery anyway.

Langly seemed to sense that too, and instead threw himself back into the chair. “I’m not buying _any_ of this,” he snarled. “So far, all you guys have given us is exploding oranges and a field full of nutjobs—none of which makes me think there’s anything other than humans involved—and now you just waltz in here and we’re supposed to believe you can deliver Elvis? No offense, man, but I’m not buyin’. I’m not even sure about the abduction crap.”

Byers, still facing the wall, raised an eyebrow in the brittle silence that followed. Well, of course Langly took Elvis seriously. And there was the lack of sleep. But he was definitely getting better at the Find Another Sucker routine, something they normally left to Frohike. He wanted to applaud. And then he wanted to get Langly alone and keep him talking, drop to his knees for him and see if he couldn't rattle the tough act.

He turned around instead. “Langly, I don’t think—“ he began mildly.

“Oh yeah?” The man was practically quivering with outrage. “I can prove it!” And then Brother Tree dropped his robe.

Byers got a brief impression of way too much skin for, say, a short-sleeved tee and a pair of jeans, and screwed his eyes closed.

“Holy shit,” Langly yelped. “Who did that to you?”

Byers kept his eyes closed for another five seconds, during which Langly failed to throw up. At that point, he decided that the images in his head had to be worse than the reality and reluctantly opened them. To his great relief, Brother Sweet Gum Tree still had all his branches, or twigs, as it might have been.

“Langly, maybe you can find our guest something to wear.” He picked up the phone.

“I’m out of shirts, okay?”

 

**

 “I’m not answering that,” Mulder declared.

Frohike grinned at him. “Wouldn’t expect you to. Just stay put for a minute.”

“Where do you think I’m gonna go?”

Frohike ignored him and grabbed the phone. “You have _any_ idea what time it is?”

“How did you know it was me?” came Byers’ voice.

“I didn’t. I always answer the phone that way at five AM. Whaddaya want, Byers? If you kids are looking for the handcuffs, you’re too late.”

Mulder snickered, and Mel would have sworn he could hear Byers blush.

“It’s nothing like that. I need to talk to Mulder.”

“He’s a little tied up right now. So tell me what’s up already. I’m really into something here.”

Byers sighed. “Just get over here, okay? Mulder too. There’s something you need to see.”

“You know, normally me and Mulder would jump at that kind of thing, but now’s not a good time. If you boys really need a third, you could make J. Wayne an offer.”

He could imagine Byers rolling his eyes. “Just get over here. We have a visitor.”

Frohike’s attention sharpened. “Men In Black?” Mulder stopped playing with the pillows and looked up.

“What? Oh, no.”

“Well, what then? If it’s more crabs, you _know_ I don’t want to know about it.”

“I’ve got one of the Brotherhood guys here, and he’s got scoop marks. Mulder is the expert on these, and I want him to have a look.”

“Oh.” He sounded genuinely aggravated, and Mel stopped kidding. He glanced at the other side of the bed. “I don’t think he’s gonna go for it, Byers. He’s still pissed off about last time.”

"Put him on, please?"

"Okay, but he's not going to like it."

He didn't.

"Mulder, I do think this is the real thing."

"You said that last time, remember? I spent three hours with that guy, just trying to get him to stop sobbing."

"This is different."

"Yeah, this time you can do it without me."

"Look, I remember last time as well as you do, and this _is_ different," he said calmly. "This isn't chicken pox, it's scoops."

"Byers, I have a policy about this now. I don't go into rooms with guys who think they've been abducted and want to show me their scars."

"Mulder, this isn’t just some guy who thinks he was abducted. This is someone _I_ think was abducted."

"Not interested, Byers. You can play connect-the-dots all night for all I care. I'm _not_ interested."

"Mulder," Byers tried again.

"Take pictures!" Mulder snarled. "If they look real to me, I'll send him a copy of the _Abductee Handbook_ , okay? I'm not coming."

Byers expected Mulder to disconnect, but Frohike had apparently grabbed the phone away. “Byers, why don’t you guys come over here if it’s so important? I don’t think Mulder can walk right now, to tell you the truth. His knee’s like a grapefruit, I was gonna go get him some more ice when we finished up here.”

"Oh." Byers glanced at Langly. “Frohike says to go over there. Mulder’s knee hurts.”

Langly snickered and looked meaningfully at Brother Tree. “We can fix that.”

“I’d be glad to help—“

Byers waved him into silence. “Bad idea, I think.” He turned back to the phone. “It’s Brother Sweet Gum Tree, Mel.”

“He’s there with you?”

“Mm-hm.”

There was silence and then the sound of a closing door. “Well,” Frohike said, his voice echoing slightly. “If anything’d get Mulder over there, that would, but I’m not eager to spend any more time with the cops, you know?”

“I suppose not.”

Frohike thought about it a little longer, and then Byers could hear Mulder, through the phone, demanding to know what was going on. Frohike sighed. “Just take some pictures, okay, John? I gotta go hit the ice machine, and I’ll come take a look after. I think the mood’s gone anyhow.”

He opened the bathroom door and gazed at Mulder. “You looked at my cards, didn’t you.”

“I had your queen, anyway. What’s up?”

“Brother Sweet Gum Tree wants to show me his scoops.”

Mulder was silent for a second. “Help me up.”

“Stay where you are, Mulder. The cops won’t spring us a second time.”

Mulder rearranged the pile of pillows under his knee again. “I owe that guy one," he said darkly.

“If I kick him in the nuts for you, can you call it even?”

“From what I hear, there’s no point.”

 

**

Mulder was still awake when Mel got back, not that that was surprising. Even under normal circumstances, and these were hardly them, Mulder usually woke up for a couple of hours in the middle of the night before going back to sleep before dawn.

“Brought you some more ice. How’s it feel?”

Mulder grumped at him, not that that was especially surprising, either. “How long’d it take you to get him to stop crying?”

Mel twitched. “Too long.” He handed Mulder the camera, and wandered off to the bathroom to dump out the melted ice and refill the waterproof sample bag they were using.

“Do I really want to see these pictures?” Mulder called from the other room.

“Yeah. You do. Don’t worry, Brother Sweet Gum has all his branches.”

“Thank God. You took pictures of… everything?”

Frohike reappeared. “Yeah. He insisted.” He balanced the ice on Mulder's knee and watched him scroll through the shots.

“So, not chicken pox.”

“Nope. They’re real enough.”

Mulder regarded him with disfavor. “So you really think these guys are being abducted by extraterrestrial sperm-bank employees?”

“I didn’t say that. I said the marks are real, and they’re not chicken pox. They’re also not self-inflicted, unless he’s really flexible.”

“Eugene Tooms…” Mulder said thoughtfully. “Never mind. I don’t believe these guys are abductees, let alone mutants.”

“Probably not in the technical sense. What I don’t know is if they do this to each other or if The Brotherhood does it to them so they believe they’re being abducted—there’s a lot of money in running a cult, especially when you can select-in the wealthy.”

Mulder gave it some thought. “Brother Bill seemed sincere.”

Frohike threw himself onto the bed next to the agent. “They all do. That’s the problem. There was a lot of money floating around that compound, though.”

“Yeah, I know. I suppose it’s also possible the MIB are doing it.”

Mel gave him an odd look. “Why would the MIB want to convince anybody they’ve been abducted? And leave trace? They’re working pretty hard at doing the opposite.”

“And yet they are leaving trace. The crabs, the ping pong balls.”

“Nothing useful.”

“We don’t know that, not until we get the analysis.”

They were silent for a while, and then Mel shrugged. “Scully’s starting to get to you. Normally you’d be all over scoops." He pondered. "For that matter, you'd have shown a lot more interest in a chupacabra, too. Especially with _Byers_ reporting."

Mulder sighed. “It’s not Scully. It’s just been a long week.”

"I hear that." Frohike nodded as Mulder rearranged the ice. "Everybody's acting weird."

Mulder thought about it. "I never know how to handle Byers' reporting, actually. He can make an alien cloning conspiracy sound like an evening of C-Span. It's hard to take it seriously."

"I suppose. How's the knee?"

Mulder shrugged. "You want to kiss it and make it better?"

"You want me to _kiss_ your knee?"

"Well, maybe not so much kiss as lick, really."

"Are we still talking about your knee?"

"No, but you could probably start there."

Frohike shook his head. "Licking your knee… You _do_ get weirder every day, Mulder."

"Is that a no?"

He shook his head. "I'm not about to make it worse, Mulder. And anyhow, I'm gonna need a while to get Brother Tree out of my head."

Mulder raised an eyebrow. "He didn't look that memorable to me. Kinda sickly, really."

"Look at the rest of the pictures," Frohike said flatly.

Mulder's eyebrow stayed up. "You already said he had all his branches. Are we talking mighty oak or tiny acorn, here?"

Frohike didn't answer, and he flicked through the rest of the shots, stopping on one.

"Wow. Bristlecone pine, I guess." His stomach churned briefly. "Maybe he's right about the aliens."

"No." Mel sighed and closed his eyes. "He does that to himself."

"How? And why?"

"Apparently," Mel said heavily, "he's decided to just leave the aliens nothing to steal. That's why he gave our tip away. He needs the money for Viagra and porn."

Mulder shuddered. "I guess it beats the Brother Bill method."

"I guess. But he probably still can't do any decent shadow puppets."

Mulder shrugged. "I dunno. The worm, the slug… the gooseneck barnacle…"

 

**

It was much later than usual by the time they got settled in at their corner booth at the Denny's. Their waitress took one look at chins propped on hands and half-closed eyes and brought them two pots of coffee.

"So what are we doing today?" Jimmy asked.

"Bigfoot hunt?" J. Wayne suggested.

"Bigfoot's a hoax," Byers mumbled.

"Normally I might agree with you, Byers…" Mulder began.

Frohike's mug rattled as he set it down. "Later. Byers, do we have _anything_ left to analyze?"

"Carpet fibers, crab confetti, cotton balls, melted ice cream, ice cream pictures, UGM pictures, some grass from the little UGM, the cupcake things and the, uh, lingerie," he recited. "Also the briefcases you brought me, a pineapple, some peach and purple residue, provisionally identified as elderberry, from your car, seven ping pong balls, two of which are crushed, a sheep-in-a-can, and our original trace, which got us nowhere much. I'm inclined to put the rest of it in a safe place, assuming we can find one, and see what I can do with the briefcases."

J. Wayne looked up. "I talked to the maid this morning, she says they've never put out mints. If we still have some left, they might be worth looking at again."

Byers shook his head. "I didn't find anything yesterday, and any other tests will destroy them, so I'd rather make sure they're done with the right equipment. Let's leave them bagged and send them for analysis."

"I can do that," Mulder offered, leaning back as the waitress distributed plates.

"Thank you. Have them look for a two part chemical process between the two mints. Eating one didn't bother either Jimmy or Langly, so it probably requires eating both mints in a room." Byers thanked their waitress and turned back to the agent. "Or those are harmless and someone targeted you two specifically."

"I guess we'll find out."

Byers nodded. "Later, J. Wayne, you and I can put on matching black suits and make the rounds of chemical supply companies to see who's ordering tetrafluoroethyl ethers."

J. Wayne looked surprised. "Wouldn't Agent Mulder get a better response?"

Mulder snorted into his coffee. "Yeah, from Skinner."

"He might enjoy a chemical analysis, though." Frohike snickered. He turned to J. Wayne. "This calls for social engineering, not badges. Byers'll show you how it's done. I guess we need to go back to Payter's place and recover the equipment. I bet they’ve cleared out, but we need to make sure.”

He glanced at Langly, who shivered. “I’m not getting anywhere near that place again. Fucking snow.”

Mulder blocked Frohike’s opening parsley toss without looking down. “I could do it, but—“

Frohike grinned. “No, you can’t. I’ll take Jimmy, I guess."

J. Wayne looked puzzled. “Why can’t he?”

Langly snickered. “Federal agent.”

“So what?” Jimmy asked.

Byers sighed. “He can’t get a warrant to enter and search. And I think we’ll discuss this later.”

Mulder offered a winning smile. “Thank you. I trust you and Jimmy won’t be doing anything illegal.”

Frohike slid the dessert card in front of his plate just in time. “Perish the thought,” he said virtuously.

Langly glanced at J. Wayne. "You wanna do some interviews this morning while Byers is doing the science thing? We are trying to write a story here."

He nodded. "We got a couple lists of witnesses this weekend, we can call around and see who's available."

Langly glanced heavenward. "He calls first."

J. Wayne frowned. "They're reporting sightings, why would they want to avoid us?"

Langly opened his mouth to say something, closed it again, and shrugged. "Okay. I guess we'll find out."

Byers gave him an odd look but let it go. "The Cayces gave us some names of people who were reporting Fortean fruit," he noted unenthusiastically.

Langly shook his head. "Short story, if that. Three column inches, maybe. We can write that from the written reports, maybe mention the peaches and stuff you guys saw."

Frohike smiled. "Or we can give it to the Pattersons and ask for a mention."

Langly nodded. "I like that. Fort could boost our circulation some."

"The Pattersons may already have it," Mulder said. "Darcy and Celestiya are friends."

Langly shook his head. "Julian said they hadn't talked to any out-of-towners yet."

"Well, we can try." Byers shrugged. "We need to figure out where we're focusing this issue, though. We came out for UFOs, and so far what we mostly have is cryptids. And Brother Sweet Gum, though I don't think we can run all the photos."

"We should save the Elvis interview for another issue," Jimmy said seriously.

"Yeah, April Fool's," Langly muttered.

Mulder reached past Frohike for the syrup, managing to leave some parsley behind. He smirked expectantly at Frohike, who was staring past him out the window. "I win."

Byers frowned at Mel. "Are you all right?"

Frohike pointed. "Hoax?"

They all followed his gaze. Across the street stood a hairy rust-colored figure in a business suit, apparently having a normal conversation with a human. They couldn't see his face, but it was clearly someone in need of a serious body waxing.

J. Wayne and Jimmy stood up hastily, but then the guy turned around.

"That's what you saw yesterday?" Byers questioned.

J. Wayne shook his head, sitting back down. "They weren't wearing signs."

"Bigfoot Shoes," Langly read. "Big Shoes, Not Big Prices."

Mulder glanced back at Frohike. "I don't know what we saw yesterday, but there weren't any shoe stores around. Maybe we should talk to this guy." He stood up. "C'mon, Fro."

Byers watched Mulder start to limp across the room, followed by a hesitant Frohike. "Jimmy, you'd better go with them. Langly, you and J. Wayne go see if you can find this store, please. It should be close by. I'll get the check and meet you in the parking lot."

 

**

When he got to the van, Mulder was already slumped in a seat with the door open, and Frohike was pacing.

"What'd he say?"

Mulder rubbed at his knee. "He saw us coming and took off. Jimmy chased him, but we couldn't keep up."

Frohike scowled. "You mean _you_ couldn't keep up."

Mulder shrugged.

"He ran away? Just like that?"

Frohike grunted. "There is definitely something goin' on here."

Mulder blinked at him. "You mean all your stories don't include encounters with Bigfoot?"

"Bigfeet?" Byers pondered it. "Bigfoots?"

Mulder sighed. "Either way, I think I'm going to be stuck working the phones this morning."

Byers looked at Frohike. "We've got instant cold packs and ibuprofen in the first aid kit."

"I was gonna look, but I didn't figure Hello Kitty bandages would help much."

Byers chuckled as Langly and J. Wayne returned. "Second cabinet from the front, bottom shelf, right out front," he reminded Frohike. "Find anything out?"

Langly shook his head. "Store doesn't open for an hour. We’ll swing by later." He looked at J. Wayne. "You got the address of the place you guys were yesterday, right? Okay."

Mulder waved off Frohike. "Save your first aid stuff. I can wait till we get to the hotel." He turned to the others. "Why would they be advertising before the store opens?"

"That is weird, isn't it." Langly blinked at him. "I dunno. And a full hour?"

They were still thinking about it when Jimmy came back. Mulder looked him over and leaned back into the van. "Still got the kit?"

Frohike stuck his head out. "What the hell happened to you, Jimmy?"

He shook his head and handed a bemused Langly an improbably large hiking boot. "He got away."

"What is this, Cinderella?" He passed the boot to Byers. "Maybe you can get some fur off it."

Byers sighed. "What happened?"

Jimmy leaned against the van. "He headed down an alley and I tackled him. I got his shoe, and he got away, and then it's like he disappeared."

"He go inside somewhere?" Frohike asked, pulling the torn shirt away from his shoulder and swabbing it with an antiseptic wipe. "Jimmy, next time you try a flying tackle, remember it works better on grass."

Jimmy shook his head. "No doors. There was a fence across the back of the alley, but he didn't go over it. I'd have seen him. And I checked the Dumpsters. He just disappeared."

Langly rolled his eyes. "Maybe the UFOs came and got him."

"I don't think so. I'd've noticed that, too."

"Well, I guess you'll live." Mel sighed. "Let's just get back to the hotel."

Mulder made room for Jimmy. "Does that hurt? I can hook you up with Brother Sweet Gum Tree."

Jimmy grinned back at him. "No thanks."

"Up to you. Maybe we can share an icepack. Hey, can you guys give us some privacy when we get back?"

Frohike rolled his eyes. "Goddammit, Mulder, I'm gonna stop saying yes, you never respect me afterwards."

Mulder snorted. "No, I mean can you guys sweep the rooms again?"

"Oh." Frohike considered it. "Well, we can check the rooms again, but I wouldn't guarantee we can find everything. We don't seem to have had much luck with security so far. You could just make your calls from the van."

"Might take hours."

"We have the rentals," Frohike decided. "How secure is your phone?"

Mulder snickered. "Probably not at all. Can you guys—?"

Byers was frowning. "We can check for spyware and hardware. Or we can set up a tap jammer, if you use the landline."

Langly shrugged. "There's a tap jammer in the van. Use one of our phones. They're secure."

Frohike agreed. "Good idea. Mulder, you can take Jimmy's phone, since he'll be with me."

"I'll show you how to change your password again, Jimmy."

"Thanks, Byers."

 

**

Byers was examining a briefcase with a lighted magnifier when Frohike returned. "Okay, the bus is secure, you can make your calls from there, Mulder. Langly and the kid are taking our rental, and Byers, can me and Jimmy use yours?"

Byers nodded as he tweezed something from a hinge. "Keys are in my jacket, right pocket. Keep an eye on the gas, it's down to less than a quarter."

"Thanks. The kids'll be back by one, and we should be back in a couple hours ourselves." He turned to Mulder. "Jimmy's getting you some more ice before we leave. So who're you planning to call, anyhow?"

Mulder shrugged. "Bureaucrat phone tag. Maybe we can work this from the other end."

"If you're calling Scully, she's just gonna laugh at you again."

"Not Scully. I'm just wondering who else might be out here."

"Wouldn't Skinner have said?"

"If he knows."

Byers looked up. "You're looking for MIB."

Mulder nodded.

Frohike frowned. "I know we joke about it, but do you really think they're our government?"

Mulder shrugged. "Stranger things have happened."

"Most of them this week. But you don't seriously think that jackass is really a Man In Black?"

"Fletcher?" Mulder grimaced. "I hate to believe it, but I've been wrong before."

Byers reached for the box of clean slides. "It doesn't have to mean anything, of course," he said. "But I've always thought he was overcompensating."

Mulder glanced up. "No kidding."

"Not like that. He's a little conspicuous for an ultra-secret operative. Trying too hard, maybe."

"I had an uncle who was a used car salesman," Frohike mused. "I do hear echoes whenever we talk to Fletcher."

Mulder frowned. "He's got serious resources, though. Someone's running him."

Byers nodded, setting down the tweezers. "Suppose you're the real Men In Black, run by organizations unknown… Assume that part of your mandate is to leave people in doubt of your very existence… What better way to muddy the waters than a group of borderline incompetents and obvious con-men wandering around professing to be the legendary Men In Black—or even believing it themselves?"

The two of them stared at him. Byers put his eye to the microscope. "It's just a theory," he said mildly.

Frohike closed his mouth with an effort. "We don’t pay you enough, Byers."

A small smile. "We couldn't afford me."

Frohike shook his head. "I gotta admit, it'd be the perfect disinformation campaign. You run into one of those clowns, and you're convinced they're just flat out liars. Most people'd discount any stories about 'em after that."

Mulder laughed. "Personally, I'm a lot happier thinking Fletcher's a patsy. I'm hardly the goo-goo you guys are, but the thought of my tax dollars going for that asshole's salary…"

Byers frowned at the crack. "They probably still are." He adjusted the magnification. "Mel, do we still have that security vid?" he asked innocently. "Maybe Mulder'd like to see what his tax dollars _do_ go for. Courtesy your local goo-goos, of course."

Frohike snorted. "Settle down, boys. Mulder, don't taunt the genius unless you want to take another shot at talking Scully into analyzing our trace."

Byers focused on Mulder, blinking. "Perhaps you could anyway. We may need DNA testing on this one."

Mulder sat up. "What've you got?"

Byers scrolled through several pages on his laptop. "Hair. Not human, it's a guard hair, we have some banding in reds and browns, tipped with white. It might be bear, but it's an unusual color phase if so."

Frohike leaned over the microscope. "What am I looking at?"

"Possibly medullary vacuoles, but there's a limit to what you can see with this magnification."

"I'll take your word for it. How do you know it's not human?"

"Thickness, cuticle pattern, scale pattern. And banding. The tip's a giveaway."

"Bear. Grizzly?"

Mulder squinted at the wall. "White tips says grizzly to me, Byers."

"To me too, but the coloration is odd. There are blond color phases, but this isn't right for that, either. There's been a large ongoing research project on brown bear DNA, so it should be easy enough to determine what we have here, with the right equipment."

Frohike gave up. "Can you at least rule out Bigfoot?"

Byers tapped the screen thoughtfully. "BFRO has some anomalous hairs they haven't identified yet, but even if we had a match, which we don't, that wouldn't be conclusive. The follicle shape is odd, though—"

A knock on the adjoining door announced Jimmy with a bucket of ice. "Hey, you guys got a towel to wrap this in? Wayne keeps putting out that card so the maid doesn't give us new ones every day."

"Hold that thought, Byers." Frohike helped Mulder up. "There's another waterproof bag in the bathroom, Jimmy. Byers, we'll be back in a while, and Mulder will be here if you need him."

The agent snorted. "Lot of help I'll be if the MIB come busting in."

Jimmy frowned. "Not much help against Bigfeet, either. Should I stay here just in case?"

Byers waved him off. "We'll be fine."

 

**

"Sorry to interrupt you. If you could get back to me when you have time? Thank you." J. Wayne disconnected and sighed. "Another too-busy."

Langly smirked. "That's, what, five? And that's just the brush-offs. I'm not even counting the no-answers."

He shrugged. "Well, at least it saves us some driving to find out they're too busy."

Langly snorted. "You actually get stories this way at all?"

J. Wayne gave him a look of faint irritation. "Not actually, no."

"You file _anything_ , ever?"

"Not from the fish files, no." He sighed again. "It's not like there's supposed to be stories in those, after all. If they were important, Zev would have assigned them to someone else.

Langly blinked. "I guess that's true. So what do you file?"

J. Wayne shrugged again. "Tech. I read reports, and I go around and I talk to scientists and professors and doctors and bureaucrats and the military about tech. Then I file stories that get rewritten and someone else's name added to my byline. Assuming they don't get spiked in the first place. That's what I've been doing, anyway."

"And you always call ahead."

"It works better than putting on an exterminator's outfit and trying to sneak past the secretaries. Especially once they all know me."

Langly was silent for several moments. "I guess it would, yeah."

That sounded almost human. J. Wayne was aware Langly didn't much like him, and suspected this morning was an excuse to get him alone and make sure he wasn't up to anything. The chance to express contempt for his J-School skills was apparently just added fun.

"Listen, Ringo," he started.

"Langly."

"Sorry, Langly. Look, I really wasn't trying to get you guys out of here so I could scoop you. I just didn't realize how dangerous this might be, and I didn't want anyone thinking I tricked you into this."

Langly snickered. "You think this is dangerous? Dangerous is when people are trying to kill you, not when people are drawing shit on you. We've done dangerous. This is just stupid."

He sighed again. "Whatever."

Langly curled his lip. "Last time we were in Washington, Jimmy busted his leg and nearly got murdered by a psycho doctor, and John almost got shot. No one's even pulled a gun on us so far. This is nothin'."

They were silent for a minute, then two. "Really?" J. Wayne said.

"Yeah, really."

"So why are you so pissed at me?"

"Who said I was pissed?"

J. Wayne rolled his eyes. "My mistake. Where are we going, anyway?"

Langly didn't answer. Eventually he said, "Maybe because we barely even know you, and all of a sudden we're chasing some stupid UFO story anyway just because you showed up."

"Mel knows me pretty well," he said defensively. "And I've been emailing with John for a year now."

Langly's knuckles tightened on the wheel. "Don't remind me," he muttered.

J. Wayne was silent again. Finally he said, "It's just email. There's nothing going on between John and me."

Langly glared at him for a second and then went back to grimly staring at the road. "I know," he said pointedly. "I trust John."

J. Wayne shrugged. "But if you're trying to warn me off, okay, I get that."

"Fuck you," Langly snapped. "I'm not warning you off, I don't have to. John's not interested in a prep-school dweeb like you."

Well, that was unnecessarily unpleasant. J. Wayne grinned, gloves off. "Maybe you're not the one who has to worry. After all, John doesn't go for the suit and tie look. And to be frank, there's a certain amount of unresolved tension here."

Langly steamed for several moments and then yanked the car to the side of the road. "Get out."

J. Wayne laughed a little. "You want to take this outside?"

"Get out," Langly growled. "I'm done talking." He opened the door and went around to the back of the car.

J. Wayne shrugged and joined him, not sure if he was going to be walking home or defending his honor.

Langly got in the first punch, because honestly J. Wayne wasn't sure he was serious. Long on enthusiasm and short on both technique and reach, he managed a glancing blow to the side of the younger man's face. Off balance, he went right over when J. Wayne stuck out a foot and tripped him. His untied laces wrapped around J. Wayne's foot and pulled him down too. The two of them glared at each other and then Langly made a tackle that landed them both in the roadside ditch.

They came up sputtering, covered in weeds and muck.

"Shit," panted J. Wayne. He turned to see if Langly was going to take another swing, but he was coughing out slimy water. He grabbed Langly by the shoulder and hauled him to sit with him on the edge of the ditch, pounding him on the back. "I don't think either of us is going to get points for that one," he sighed, fishing for Langly's glasses. He found half of them. He tried to pass them over and realized Langly was starting to wheeze. "Hey, are you okay?"

"Asthma," he gasped.

"Shit. What do you need? You have an inhaler?"

"Bag." He wasn't looking too good.

J. Wayne gingerly reached into his jeans pocket for the car keys. "Don't punch me, okay?" He staggered to his feet and pulled the backpack from the trunk, digging through the easy pockets, figuring it'd be handy. It wasn't there, and he gave up and dumped the whole pack out into the trunk before he found a small red tube with a canister at one end. He scanned the label quickly, and pressed it into Langly's fingers.

He fumbled it into his mouth and squeezed, sucking hard at it. A few seconds of holding his breath and he managed some short breaths, gasping the air in.

J. Wayne knelt next to him. "Here, lean against me. And maybe don't hit me again."

Langly barely managed to shake his head but did as he was told. Another puff, a few more minutes, and some of the color came back to his face as his breathing slowed.

J. Wayne sighed. "You okay now?"

Langly took another shot and then nodded, starting to calm. J. Wayne waited until he was breathing more or less normally and reached out a hand to pull him up. He slumped against the trunk of the car. He cleared his throat. "That... was pretty stupid," he said, still a little breathless.

J. Wayne snorted. "Not my proudest moment."

Langly eyed him sideways, lips beginning to twitch. "Mine either," he sighed. He cleared his throat again. "Did you find my glasses?"

"Yeah." He passed them over. "Half of them, anyway. You have a spare?"

Langly gazed at them in resignation. "Yeah, in the van." He hesitated. "Did you grope me?"

J. Wayne jingled the keys at him. "Not on purpose." He snickered. "But I think it's safe to say the sexual tension has been broken."

Langly put his head in his hands and tried not to laugh. "Fuck."

J. Wayne joined him on the bumper, rubbing slightly at his face. "I was just kidding, you know. I'm really not into either of you guys. I was just fed up with the attitude." He smiled vaguely at the road.

That earned him a long look. Langly shrugged finally. "I'm his first boyfriend."

"Oh." J. Wayne let out a breath. "I don't think you have to worry," he said slowly. "Not the way he looks at you."

Langly glared again. "And you've noticed this?"

J. Wayne shook his head, still smiling. "Langly, there are _rocks_ that would notice. The waitress at the Denny's hasn't even tried to flirt with you since the first time he shot her a look."

Langly choked. "That chick? Was flirting with me?"

He couldn't help laughing at the panic. "Yeah, Laverne or Velma or whoever. The one with the messy braids."

"Man."

J. Wayne stood up. "Let's go get cleaned up. I'll drive, I guess."

Langly grimaced and shook some mud off his arm. Then he grinned. "You don't look as good in a suit as Johnny does, anyway."

J. Wayne pulled his sopping jacket off and threw it in the trunk. "You should see me in a Kay Unger cocktail dress."

Langly stopped. "Serious?"

"Hey, I look _great_ in blue strappy Jimmy Choos."

Langly folded himself into the passenger's seat. "Yeah, you're definitely not John's type."

J. Wayne started the car. Langly glanced at him again, maybe trying to tell how serious he was. "So the bra...?"

"Not my color, really."

"Oh."

They drove for a while, Langly watching J. Wayne. "So you and Mulder," he said eventually.

"Met at a convention."

"Yeah, I remember. That's not what I meant. Listen, Mel and Mulder really like each other, okay?"

J. Wayne sighed. "You know, I'm not that desperate for companionship. I'm out here for a story, not a date, okay?"

"I'm just saying. If you try to break them up, we're gonna go another round, okay?"

"If we do it in clown costumes, we could probably sell tickets for charity."

 

**

"You're back early," Byers said without looking up. "No one was home?"

Langly tried to sneak past into the bathroom. "Needed my spare glasses."

"They're in the van with Mel's. Last drawer under the—" Byers turned around and stared. "What the hell happened? You're a mess."

"No big deal. Fell in a ditch."

Byers narrowed his eyes. "And your glasses?"

"Got broken."

Byers stood up and helped him get his wet clothes off. "Where's J. Wayne?"

Langly sighed. "Changing. He fell in the ditch too."

"Was this a Bigfoot thing?"

"No." He found some clean jeans. "Let it go, John. It was just a thing."

"Is that a footprint?" Byers was shocked. "Did someone kick you?"

Langly turned red. "Not really."

Byers found his rescue inhaler in the pocket of the wet jeans and held it up. "Richard Langly, you are going to tell me exactly what happened. Now."

Langly froze for a moment and then dropped into a chair. "Fine. It was just a thing. J. Wayne and I got into it, a little bit."

"J. Wayne kicked you?"

"Tripped me. Well, maybe I punched him first."

Byers' jaw dropped. "Why... Why would you do that?"

Langly glared at the wall. "We just got into an argument, okay? We had it out. It's fine now."

Byers' hand tightened around the inhaler. "If you needed this, it's not fine. What happened?"

"It's okay, John. I'm fine now. We just had an argument, and maybe I punched him, and then maybe he tripped me, and then maybe we both ended up in a ditch, and I breathed in some water, a little, but it's okay now."

Byers sighed. "That's a lot of maybes, Ri."

Langly almost smiled. "It was pretty dumb."

"Sounds like it. Let me guess what this argument was about."

Langly blushed again. "Uh..."

Byers let out an annoyed huff. "This jealousy thing is not cute, Ringo. He's not my type."

Langly snorted. "You're right about that, man. I'm starting to think he's Jimmy's type."

Byers stared. "How hard did you hit your head?"

"Never mind. It's fine, John. We had it out, okay?"

Byers glared a moment or two longer and then relented. "All right. Stay here. I'm going to get your glasses, and you're going to take it easy for a couple of hours. Did you arrange to talk to anyone?"

"No." He rolled his eyes. "He calls first, and they all say they're busy."

"I suspected as much. I don't think he does much of this kind of story, really." He helped Langly up and got him to lay down on the bed. "Stay put. I mean it. I'll be right back."

Byers returned in a few minutes with the spare glasses and a frown. "Here. Can I leave you here with Mulder for a while?"

"Only if you leave the stun gun."

Byers almost laughed. "I think you're safe for now. He's not moving very fast, with his knee. Which is good, I don't think you should be running any races for a bit." He started to change into the black suit he'd brought along.

Langly frowned. "You going to check chemical places? I don't want you going alone."

"No, I didn't plan to. J. Wayne said he'd come with me, and you can stay here and relax until you feel better. Mulder's still making calls, so if you need anything tell him. All right? He's on Jimmy's phone, remember."

"Yeah. I'm okay, though, really."

"Humor me. If you're feeling up to it, Frohike wanted someone to check into the Brotherhood people and see how many of them have money, and if they've been donating it to the group. He and Mulder think it might just be a scam."

"There've gotta be easier ways of scamming people, man."

"None of these people seem to be into easy."

"No, they all seem to go for weird."

"Do you need anything before I go?"

Langly grinned at him.

"Other than that," Byers sighed. "I get that weird turns you on, but maybe you could save it all up for tonight."

"You're not gonna know what hit you, baby."

Byers smiled and shook his head. "Right. Just take it easy for now. I'll be back in a couple of hours."

 

**

Frohike drove past the house once, but it did seem deserted. He pulled into the driveway with a shrug. "Well, let's at least get the gear."

Jimmy followed him up to the door, where they knocked for the sake of appearances. When nobody answered, Frohike gestured. "You do that side of the house, I'll do this. And be damned careful with the equipment, this time. It's expensive."

Jimmy shuffled a bit. "Uh, I'll just follow you, okay?"

"Be faster if we split up."

Jimmy squirmed a little under the hard gaze. "Uh. Agent Mulder, uh..."

"What about him."

"Uh. He told me not to leave you alone."

Frohike glared. "What the hell, Jimmy?"

"He's worried about Bigfoots. So he told me to stay with you, in case you need rescuing."

"That asshole. Do I look like some sort of damsel in distress?"

Jimmy grinned nervously. "I think it's kinda nice. He worries about you."

"He's an idiot. I can take care of myself."

"Wayne said they almost kidnapped you, though."

"The hell they did! I was waiting to find out what they wanted, then I'd have gotten free on my own."

Jimmy looked at his feet. "Sure, Mel. Sorry. Just, I promised Agent Mulder..."

Frohike almost felt bad. He sighed. "Whatever. Fine, you can stick close, but not too close, okay? I like my personal space."

Jimmy looked relieved. "Okay."

The first window was bare of gear, but for some reason the inside had apparently been painted white. "Did you guys get the mics already?"

Jimmy glanced back at him from where he was scanning the yard. "No. We didn't have a chance. Why's the window white? More snow?"

Frohike shook his head. "Paint, I think. Are you sure you didn't get them? Langly didn't? And just forget to mention it?"

"No. I mean yes. I mean we didn't. We left too fast." He paused. "Do you hear that scratching noise?"

"Probably a squirrel," he said dismissively, turning back to the window with a scowl. "Well, it wouldn't be the first time a target found them. Damn, those things are expensive." He sighed and led the way to the next window, also free of microphones, also white. "I guess we might as well check them all. Dammit."

Jimmy followed, apparently still checking trees for Bigfoot or squirrels, still with a puzzled look. Frohike ignored it. He was on his toes trying to peer through a bit of glass that had been scraped clear. He couldn't see much of anything, just a general impression of more white.

"See if you can see anything in there. It's too high."

"Huh? Oh." With a last inspection of the scenery, Jimmy pressed his face against the glass. "Hey, I think there's something moving—"

A chalky hand thumped flat against the inside of the glass, and both Gunmen jumped, Jimmy falling back and nearly knocking them both over.

"The fuck?" Frohike yelped.

"There's somebody in there!"

Frohike took a firm grip on his nerves and made his voice steady. "I got that, yeah. Can you see them?"

He edged up to the window and cautiously put his face close to where the hand had been. A larger patch of glass had been partially cleared, and he squinted through it. "Sorta, yeah," he said hesitantly. He raised his voice. "Hey, can you hear me?"

"I don't know—" Frohike started, and then the hand was back, waving weakly, accompanied by a muffled whine.

"I think they need help," Jimmy announced. "Stick close, okay?" He headed for the front door and charged it, slamming his shoulder into it and making it shake in the frame. "Hold on, we're coming!"

Frohike rolled his eyes. "Stop, dammit. You're gonna hurt yourself." He pulled a set of lockpicks from his pocket and waved them at him. "Just back off a minute, okay?"

Jimmy abandoned his attempt to batter his way in and stood back. "Good thinking."

Frohike straightened up and tried the knob. It turned but he couldn't budge the door. "Uh." He pushed harder. "Okay, back to you, I guess."

Jimmy managed to get the door open almost an inch and then it was stuck again.

Frohike sighed. "Go for it."

A few more assaults on it than Frohike was happy with, and finally the door slammed open into the wall with a series of crunching sounds, followed by more crunching sounds and some yelling when Jimmy's unchecked momentum carried him inside and into whatever had been holding it.

"Shit! You okay, Jimmy?" He eased in carefully, eyes wide in the gloom. "What the fuck?"

"I think I cut myself." Jimmy paused. "And I hurt my shoulder again. I think I'm okay though. What is this stuff?"

"Great." Frohike picked up a piece of white, chalky rubble and sniffed. "This day just keeps getting better," he muttered, reaching a hand down to help him up. "Let's find your friend."

Jimmy dusted himself off while Frohike pulled a small flashlight and tried to get his mind around what he was looking it.

"It's uh..." Jimmy stared. "It's like _Aliens_ in here," he whispered.

And, it mostly was. The walls were cocooned with ropes of a thick white substance, hardened into a sort of set-dresser's wet dreams. The last time Frohike had seen anything like this, they'd been watching Apone and the others being ambushed by xenomorphs. Except this... smelled like egg. "I think it's just meringue."

"Like pies?"

"Yeah, kind of. It's dried hard. But yeah, it smells like meringue."

"That's weird."

"Yeah." Frohike pushed at a part of it. "I think our friend is behind there. This is pretty hard stuff." He thought it over, trying to ignore the muffled yelling. "Hang on, I'll go get the crowbar. We can knock our way through it."

"Uh..." Jimmy's voice made him hesitate. "What if... What if they're aliens?"

Frohike sighed heavily and handed over the flashlight. "Probably just a hapless colonist. See if you can talk to them. I'll be right back. And nobody touch nothin'."

When he got back, Jimmy was shining the light around and making what he probably thought was soothing conversation with the encrusted walls. "So we're just gonna get you out of there, okay? Don't worry, buddy. Unless you have one in you. That might be a problem."

"Shut up, dummy." Frohike pushed him aside and took a swing at the thickest part of the sculpture. A large part cracked off with a cloud of dust. He coughed and pulled on a particle mask and goggles, giving a set to Jimmy. "Put these on. I dunno what's in this dust, so let's not take chances. " He handed the bar to Jimmy. "That's the door. Get us in there."

The whole place was a thick soup of dust by the time Jimmy managed to shove the interior door open and Mel made a note to praise Byers for his contingency packing. There was just enough light to spot the captive held fast in eggy alien splendor by the single window. Frohike stared.

Jimmy joined him. "Uhhhh."

Frohike nodded. The yelling was coming from inside what he dearly hoped was a mask, because he did not want to think about why aliens had glued Gumby to the wall of what he forcefully reminded himself was a perfectly normal house in a perfectly normal suburb. "Weirdness."

"At least it's not Bigfoot."

On the floor in front of the figure bound to the wall sat nearly three dozen football-sized, brightly colored eggs. Jimmy edged carefully around them. "None of them have opened, I guess." His eyes were wide behind the goggles as he looked at Mel. "This is really weird, isn't it."

"It's just decoration," Frohike said firmly. Very firmly. While not at all watching the eggs very closely for signs of movement. Because it was just set-dressing, and while it truly was weird, it was not dangerous, and certainly didn't involve aliens. Absolutely not. "They're just having some fun," he tried. "It's just supposed to worry us, but we're not worried."

Jimmy nodded and made sure the respirator was tight. "Yeah. It's just special effects, right?"

"It's meringue and big plastic Easter eggs is all."

"Right."

"We'd better get him out of there, though. No telling how long he's been there, probably at least dehydrated."

"Okay." Jimmy bashed through the rest of the sculpture and caught the guy as he fell from the wall. He pulled the head off. "Hey, it's okay. We've got you now. Are you okay? You look like—"

"Payter," Frohike interrupted. "That's Marcus Payter. The real one. Fuck me," he sighed. "We've finally got at least one answer."

 

**

Frohike was on the phone, trying to explain things to Mulder, half-watching Jimmy get Payter settled in the rental car. "Stop saying that, will you?" he snapped.

Mulder paused. And then said it again. "You're kidding."

"No, I am not fucking kidding," he repeated with the last of his patience. "I guess the Men In Black did it."

"You—"

"Mulder."

A longer pause. "Okay, you're not kidding. But this is a little..."

"Weird. Yeah. Payter isn't doing much talking right now, he seems dehydrated and confused. I'm inclined to take him to a hospital and see if we can talk to him later."

"Is he hurt?"

"I don't know. He's got a few cuts and scrapes from us prying him off the walls, but he looks okay. And he's been doing some coughing, but I guess the Gumby mask kept most of the gunk out of his lungs. He should get them checked out at least, but then we'll have a biohazard crew in here destroying our evidence, I bet. I don't know, though. Every time I get near him he starts yelling again. Jimmy's looking after him."

"What'd you do to him?"

Mel scrubbed his hand over his face. "I didn't do anything, Mulder. He keeps yelling 'Newt' at me."

"Oh my God."

"Shut up, Mulder. It's not funny."

"...can't stop..."

"Honest to God, Mulder, if you don't shut up—" His threat was interrupted by the engine and a shout from Jimmy. He turned to see Jimmy standing at the open trunk of the car as it pulled away. "Fuck." He heard Mulder yelling his name but didn't bother to respond as he watched their lead—and their car—disappear to God knows where, and tried to remember if he'd left anything with a tracker in it.

Jimmy made a valiant effort at running after the car but gave up after a couple of blocks, circling back to his side with an apologetic look on his face.

"I'm sorry, Mel. He asked for some water and I knew we had some in the trunk, so I went to get it and--"

"You left the keys in the ignition."

Jimmy winced. "Yeah."

"Great. Fucking great." He went back to the phone. "Hey, Mulder? We're kinda stranded here now. No, we're okay. Payter took the car, is all. Because somebody left the keys in it."

Jimmy hung his head. "Sorry."

Frohike shrugged. "So we might as well get some pictures and some samples, and somebody needs to come get us."

Mulder stopped laughing long enough to say "On my way."

"Great. Hey, since we don't want to wait here while you spend four hours getting lost, maybe you could send Byers instead."

 

**

When everybody finally got back to the hotel, Langly insisted on being taken to the house to see it for himself.

"What, you're not worried about snow anymore?" Frohike sniped, toweling his hair dry after showering off the layer of dust. It'd been a long day already.

Langly shrugged apprehensively. "Yeah, kinda, but this looks pretty cool."

Byers intervened. "It's fine. I'd like to get some more samples and run some tests. And we could use some better pictures. We'll take the van and set up some lighting." He paused, thinking. "You and Mulder could check the shoe store while we're gone, I suppose."

Mulder frowned. "I don't think Mel should go there. We already know they've got some kind of interest in him. I don't want to give them another chance."

Frohike rolled his eyes. "Fine, you take Jimmy. I'll go back to the house. There's some stuff I'd like a closer poke at, too." He looked around. "Where'd J. Wayne go?"

Jimmy pointed vaguely. "He was doing something with the computer when I got changed. Probably still there."

Byers stood up. "I'll check with him before we leave, and see if he needs anything. And give him the passwords for the tip lines, just in case The Brotherhood or anyone else wants to get in touch."

Langly handed him a notepad. "I'll check. You need to make a list of what was in the rental that we've lost." He glared at Jimmy.

"I'm sorry, guys!"

"That makes it all so much better."

"I don't want to have to ground you two," Mel said calmly. "Everybody know what they're doing? Good. All right, sweethearts, what are you waiting for, breakfast in bed?"

 

**

Halfway to the house, stopped at a red light, Byers sighed. Frohike glanced at him, and then raised an eyebrow when Langly said "Yeah, John, I know."

He looked from one to the other and then sighed himself. "It's not going to still be there, is it."

Byers' fingers fluttered a bit on the steering wheel, a sort of half shrug. "I wouldn't put money on it, no."

Langly's lips twitched slightly. "Just as well, dude. After our last trip to Vegas."

Byers shaded red. "Ringo," he started.

"All right, boys," Frohike interrupted. "Back to your corners. Langly, don't piss off the driver unless you want to walk back to Seattle."

"Might as well start now," Langly muttered. "I really wanted to see this, too."

Byers frowned, and then shrugged. "It might be fine, Langly. It's been less than an hour."

Mel thumped their young partner on the shoulder. "Relax, buddy. Nobody even knows we went back to the place. If they were leaving it for us to get a look at, they probably don't even know we have yet. Don't borrow trouble."

Langly let out another, longer, sigh. "Yeah, we've got plenty of trouble out here. You're right, I know, it's just..."

"Just what?"

"I got a bad feeling about this."

Frohike glanced at Byers. "What about you, John?"

Byers shook his head slightly. "No. These people can't be that good, or J. Wayne's trace would never have gotten off the island. You two would never have met the real Payter to begin with, and they wouldn't have put him back today. They couldn't know he was going to run, they should have worried about what he could tell us."

"Unless they knew he didn't have anything _to_ tell us."

"What's with the Debbie Downer act, kid? You hit a wall on this one?"

Langly bit his lip and hesitated. "It's just a feeling. Like everything is about to get even weirder."

Byers forced a smile. "Well, that shouldn't worry you, should it. If it should worry anyone, it should be me."

Langly grinned for a split second and then sank back into apprehension. "I still have a bad feeling about this."

Byers frowned again. "How much albuterol did you use, Ringo? This could just be an anxiety response. You've had those before."

"You're not taking me seriously, Byers."

"I absolutely am, Ringo, but you must admit this is out of character for you. I'm just trying to figure out what's going on."

"And just like that you decide my inhaler's making me paranoid? What the fuck, Johnny?"

"Obviously that's not—"

"Boys," Mel interrupted again, more forcefully this time. "Could you two maybe table this discussion, ideally forever, or at least until you're alone."

They both glanced at him, startled, and went quiet.

"Sorry," Byers managed.

"Anyhow, we'll know in a few minutes. No sense worrying yet."

Byers nosed the van into the tangle of streets where their target lived. As they pulled up to the house, it looked unchanged. Byers parked in the driveway and they watched the door for a few moments. "It looks the same."

Frohike nodded. "Our rental's not here. I guess Payter didn't come back. I guess I'm not surprised."

Langly pulled the door open. "Well, let's go see this thing. You think it's really meringue? Because, wow."

"Hold on a minute," Byers said. "Take a mask, Ringo. You don't need another attack."

"Goggles, too," Frohike said. "There's a lot of dust."

Langly ducked his head back in and Byers pulled them free from the cupboards and handed them over, before going back to gathering sample bags and gadgets. Langly headed up the walk and took a breath before he pushed the door open. He stepped inside and froze in shock.

It really was amazing. The pictures they'd taken hadn't done justice, even with large portions of the sculpture shattered apart by their rescue mission and the dust still suspended in the air. Even the paleness of it lent a slightly ethereal sense rather than detracting from the authenticity of it all. He half expected to see Ripley bust through a door with her M41A pulse rifle and flamethrower. "Look, man," he said under his breath, "I only need to know one thing: Where they are."

"What's that?" Mel said, coming up behind him, setting down a case full of equipment.

Langly turned around and grinned a little sheepishly. "Just, uh... Never mind. This is really cool," he said in a more normal voice.

"Busy little creatures, huh?" Frohike grinned back at him. "It actually is, once you know what's going on."

"Meet me at the south lock," Byers called from the doorway. "I'm coming in."

Langly grinned at him too. "He's comin' in. I feel safer already."

Frohike slung his pack onto the floor and pulled out some gloves. "I like to keep these handy. For close encounters."

Langly started giggling, he couldn't help it. "You started this. Show me everything. I can handle myself."

Byers laughed. "Well, let's take some readings and some more samples, and then we'll set up some lighting and get some good pictures."

"Outstanding," Frohike replied. "Now all we need is a deck of cards."

"Let's rock."

They'd been moving around for a few minutes when Langly accidentally tripped over a mound of egg and stumbled, bracing himself against the wall at the last second with a solid thump. There was a sudden flurry of sound on the other side of the wall.

The Gunmen all stopped instantly and stared at each other.

"What was that?" Byers asked.

Langly, eyes wide, whispered hoarsely, "That's right outside the door."

Frohike cleared his throat nervously. "Langly, get back." He was interrupted by a harsh squawk. The three men pulled closer to each other, watching the door to the bedroom where Payter had been held.

"There were eggs," Frohike remembered. "That's... that's crazy though. They were just plastic Easter eggs. This is so nuts."  

Byers straightened up, gathered his courage. "Maybe Payter came back."

Frohike put his hand on the doorknob as Langly said "That didn't sound human."

"Maybe squirrels," Frohike offered.

"Or Bigfoot?"

Langly had stopped listening and was muttering to himself. "That's it, man. Game over, man, game over."

Frohike rolled his eyes, almost amused, and pushed the door open. "I don't see—" He was cut off as something in the gloom hissed loudly. "Shit!" he yelped as several very tall shapes moved toward him, letting out raucous noises, thin necks darting forward. He slammed the door and leaned against it, panting.

Byers was blinking. "Were those...?"

"Ostriches," Mel confirmed. "I guess that explains the eggs. Sort of."

Something banged against the door from the other side.

Langly slumped against Byers, anxiety dissipating. "I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."

 

**

J. Wayne was copying the previous day's photo files onto his laptop when a rustle made him look around. An envelope had been slipped under the door, very cloak and dagger. The UFO photo merchant again, he figured, going to retrieve it. He thumbed through them. A series of highly reflective curved surfaces filled the photos from edge to edge. He'd been to school with a woman who'd built a computer program involving manifold theory, and he was reminded of some of the images she'd created.

Of course, without context there was no way of knowing what they were or even if they were 'shopped. You could just as easily say they were the inside of a spaceship or the inside of a muffler. He flipped them around to look at different angles as the last of the UGM drawing photos uploaded.

When a shadow fell across him, he started to turn around. There was a brief struggle and then darkness.

 

**

J. Wayne grunted, trying to sit up. A gun in his face stopped him. The glare on the other end of it belonged to his first Man In Black, which made it a shame it was actually a woman. Attractive, as these things went, and extremely angry. Slightly familiar, maybe, but black pants, black blouse, black jacket, black sunglasses, was practically a uniform. The designer blouse was silk, though, and, he felt, inappropriately low cut for a covert government operative. Likewise, the heels were high and impractical, suede Louboutin with a red sole. It wasn't quite what he was expecting, if he'd thought to expect a Woman In Black.

He sniffed slightly, an odd but not unpleasant scent in the air. "Did you just chloroform me?" he asked in disbelief.

"No. I hit you." Her voice was accented, but he couldn't place it.

"Oh. That explains the headache." He felt the base of his skull gingerly. "Listen, if you're looking for the bra, I don't have it. I think it's been tagged as evidence."

The gun didn't waver. "I'm not. I'm looking for James Bond."

"Boy do you have the wrong—" He stopped and scrubbed his hand across his face. "Uh, you mean... Jimmy?"

She gestured impatiently with the gun. "Yes, Jimmy. This is his room, and that's his stuff, and these—" she transferred her glare to the laptop—"are photos of him, albeit more of him than people generally see. Where is he?"

"He and Mulder—" He stopped, realizing where he'd seen her before. He opened his mouth to clear things up and she threw something onto his chest. His wallet, it turned out.

"Who exactly are you?" she demanded.

J. Wayne picked up his wallet, annoyed, and sat up. "I know it says my name on my library card."

He stood up, ignoring the gun, and dusted himself off. "Wayne Arthur. I'm Jimmy's roommate this week. You must be Yves. Lovely to meet you," he said sourly. As first impressions went, this was ridiculous.

"How—"

"He's got your picture on his cell phone."

"Oh." She looked if anything more irritated, but the gun disappeared. "Where are the Gunmen?"

"Jimmy went with Mulder to check out a shoe store. Mel and John and Langly are following a lead, though they should be back soon. Can I help you with something?" He turned to check the back of his neck in the mirror. "And my fan club grows," he muttered to himself. He looked back at her. She had the sunglasses off and was examining him closely, in a way he found disconcerting.

"The pictures?" she asked.

He sighed. "Men In Black. Some of those pictures are of me, too, by the way. All of us, in fact, not just Jimmy. It was something of a group ambush." He shrugged helplessly. "Sorry about... the bra thing..." he sighed again, "I thought you might be the MIB back for the trace they left. They don't knock either."

"When will he be back?"

He shrugged again. "I wouldn't think too long. Unless they end up chasing Bigfoot again."

"Bigfoot's a hoax."

"The jury may still be out. You're welcome to wait for Jimmy, I suppose. Try not to hit me again."

"We'll see." She replaced her glasses. "Actually, you'll do for now."

 

**

"So we laid down a suppressing fire with the incinerators and fell back by squads to the van."

Mulder was laughing into the phone again. "Ostriches?"

Mel shrugged pointlessly. "Yeah. We actually just sealed the door shut with some foam epoxy. I guess we need to call animal control."

"This is the best trip ever, Fro."

"Yeah, we're having a ball. You guys find anything out?"

Mulder shrugged pointlessly back. "We're going through their records and inventory. Place seems normal, except they specialize in shoes sizes fifteen through twenty five, men's. Which is huge. I didn't know they made twenty fives."

"Wow, if their feet are twenty fives, imagine what else they're packing."

"These guys must be hung like barnacles," Mulder snickered.

"Still, can't get too much business. I'd think a twenty five is a little too small for Bigfoot and too big for anyone else. Who are they selling to, clowns?"

"I dunno, but I called them in and their bank balances and profit statements look pretty healthy. I accused them of being a front for organized crime—"

"Bigfoot gangs?" Mel interrupted.

"—and they opened their books pretty fast after that. Jimmy's got the manager downstairs, they're looking through boxes, allegedly for drugs."

"What are you hoping to find really?"

"I have no idea. It might actually _be_ drugs. There was something funny about the register, though. They hadn't had any sales today—"

"Hard to imagine they ever do."

"—and all the cash was dated 1970 or before, looking pretty crisp."

"That's odd. Maybe rings a bell, though. I'll ask Byers."

"Yeah, that reminds me. J. Wayne called."

"What's up?"

"Ms. Loy called."

"Mulder, stop dragging this out and tell me."

"She'd like us to see if we can't stop a kidnapping."

"Payter?"

"No, the name she gave me is Betty."

"Betty who?" Frohike asked, baffled.

"You're gonna love—Hang on, Jimmy's got something. I'll call you back."

Mel sighed and went back into the house. "We about done here?"

"I think so, except for that room. We haven't heard anything from them in a while."

Langly snorted. "Maybe we got 'em demoralized."

Mel tried not to laugh. "Okay, I guess we call animal control and split."

Byers hesitated. "I wanted samples of the eggs, or egg shells, maybe some feathers."

Mel tipped his head to the side and thought for a moment. "Okay, we go park down at the junkyard again, call animal control, and then hang around until they're gone. I'm not interested in spending any more time with the authorities, though, and this is going to be difficult to explain."

"No, you're right. I suppose we could let them into here, close the door behind them, and break in through the window to get our samples."

Mel blinked. Byers wasn't usually the one to propose wanton destruction. He glanced at the epoxy. "It's been curing less than three hours, I guess we could probably break it."

"Ostriches are kinda dangerous, guys," Langly cut in. "Jimmy was watching a show... They can kick pretty hard and kill people. I don't know how we let them out of there without getting close."

"Maybe we could trank 'em."

Byers was already shaking his head. "We don't even know if that's going to work on birds. Not fast enough, at any rate. All we have is the chlorpromazine."

"Yeah, I wasn't really expecting to have to take down ostriches when I packed." Mel threw up his hands in exasperation. "Byers, are the samples really that important? Maybe we can come back tomorrow for them, but once animal control gets a look at this place, I think it's going to be out of our hands."

Byers sighed. "I suppose I have enough to work with, really."

"Okay. Let's make sure we have everything, and then we'll bug out and call it even." He started piling equipment back into the crate. "I guess Sela called again, with another tip. Mulder wasn't very specific, but something about a kidnapping."

"These nutjobs want us to kidnap the Men In Black for them?"

He glanced up at Langly. "No, I guess they want us to stop somebody named Betty from getting kidnapped."

Byers paused. "I don't recall them indicating they had advanced warning of the abductions, but I suppose we can try to help."

"Whatever. We'll get more details from Mulder when we get back. Over coffee, I guess. It's already five and it looks like it's going to be a long night."

"We'd better get back," Langly said. "'cause it'll be dark soon—"

"And they mostly come at night. Mostly," they all finished together.

 

**

J. Wayne had failed to get adequate answers from Yves: Why she was in Washington, what she needed Jimmy for, how she'd met the Gunmen, even where they were going. It didn't stop him from trying.

"Are you always this talkative?" she asked irritably.

"I'm sure it's just Stockholm Syndrome."

She almost smiled. "You're not kidnapped."

"I'm sorry. What could I have been thinking? Oh, yeah, you pulled a gun on me."

"I still have it."

"You seem like a smart person. Shooting me would make it harder for me to help with whatever it is you need." He'd decided pretty quickly they were never going to be BFFs. The tendency to resort early and often to threats and violence was somewhat off-putting. But he also didn't actually think she would kill him. The Gunmen clearly knew who she was, and wouldn't tolerate that, he imagined, especially not Jimmy.

"Are you sure of that?"

"Well, I'm pretty sure you wouldn't have shot Jimmy so he could help you, so, yeah, probably."

"All right. I need you to help me carry a body."

He blinked. "Alive or dead? What species? To where? _From_ where?"

"Is this Twenty Questions?"

"That's only four, so far."

She rolled her eyes and took an exit. "Does it matter? It will take half an hour at most. Then I need you to make a couple of calls."

J. Wayne sighed. "Okay. I need to be back by eight or so. We've been asked to help prevent an alien abduction."

She flicked her eyes at him and then back to the road. "Really." Her disbelief was palpable.

"Yeah. An innocent bystander named Betty." He leaned forward and opened the glove box, inspecting the insurance documents with a preoccupied air.

"You don't appear to be concerned about this." She seemed if anything puzzled.

He shrugged. "Jimmy thinks you're okay. I trust his instincts." He caught her small, private smile, but didn't comment on it as he replaced the envelope. "So far, I'll go along with this, I guess. If we have to have it out later, we do. I don't think you'll shoot me if I refuse to help. I wouldn't mind a few more answers, though."

As they waited at a stoplight, she finally turned and frowned at him. "Exactly how did you fall in with the boys?"

"Met Mel at a convention last year. You?"

"It's a very long story." She gave him a last hard look before turning back to the road.

She was annoyingly evasive, though. "I have time, apparently."

"It's also not very interesting."

"You know, if you happen to have a body in the trunk you might not want to get stopped for speeding."

"I don't. He's not actually a body quite yet."

He dug around, finding sunglasses, some makeup, some parking tags. "I hope you're not expecting me to remedy that."

"No. I'll take care of that."

"Are you going to hit him too?"

"I thought I'd use a Taser on him."

"Remind me not to piss you off. May I?" He held up a tube of lipstick.

"Consider yourself reminded." She actually didn't sound angry, though. She seemed almost amused.

He wondered what attracted her to Jimmy. The guy was a hunk, and had that fresh, sincere quality that seemed to appeal to women, but he almost certainly wasn't up to her level of banter.

"Mauvelous," he read off the base of the tube. "Funny."

He went to open it and she yelled "Don't" at him and then he was seized by pain until darkness fell on him for the second time in an hour. This time, he was almost relieved.

 

**

Byers and Frohike were organizing samples when Mulder knocked on the door to the bus and slid the door open. Langly looked up from the photos he was sorting. "You should see these, Mulder."

Mulder moved over to him, leaning over his shoulder. "That's pretty impressive."

"What'd you and Jimmy find?" Frohike asked. "And give us about ten minutes, and we can go grab dinner."

Mulder checked his watch. "We should probably get takeout. We'll need to plan tonight over dinner, I don't think we'll have time later."

Mel paused. "Okay, what's going on tonight? Is this the Brotherhood tip you mentioned?"

"Yeah. It's probably not something we should discuss in the middle of a Denny's." He stopped as Jimmy came running over to them.

"Guys? I think Wayne is missing."

"Missing?" Mel glared at him. "Whaddaya mean, 'missing'?"

"There's, like, a lamp knocked over and stuff, and he's not there, and he left his wallet on the floor and his phone's on the desk but he's not there."

Byers closed the samples case. "Is he in one of our rooms? Or maybe he went to get some coffee?"

"Without his wallet?" Mulder asked.

Langly emerged from the dark van blinking. "Our car's still here, he must be around."

"There's a broken lamp, guys. I'm worried."

Frohike led the way across the lot. "Okay, don't get your shorts in a knot. We'll find him."

A beeping cut the air and Jimmy pulled his phone from his pocket. He looked at it, and fell back a little. "Hi, Yves. I'm not sure I can talk right now, we're kind of busy."

"So I hear. I wouldn't interrupt, but I have something that belongs to you."

"Belongs to me?" He was confused.

"All of you."

"Guys? It's Yves," he called. There was some grumbling as they turned back. "She says she has something of ours."

"Did she steal my prototype?" Langly demanded. "I told you I didn't just lose it."

Jimmy turned back to the phone. "Is it Langly's prototype?"

"Actually, it's Mr. Arthur. There was an accident with a stun gun."

 

**

They were gathered in Jimmy's room when she knocked.

Jimmy let her in. "Where's Wayne?"

She sighed. "He's in my car. He'll be fine in an hour or two. Come and help me get him."

They all trailed her out. "Just what happened?" Frohike demanded. "You zapped him?"

"No. He managed that without my help. He's a bit nosy for his own good."

"He's a reporter." Mulder dismissed that. "What happened?" He stopped as they got to the car.

"Man." Frohike peered in through the window. "Is he okay? Does he need a doctor?" The kid was hunched in the passenger seat, the fingers of his swollen right hand and his closed eyes twitching occasionally. A wad of tissues had been tucked beneath his jaw to catch a thread of drool.

"Fuck, Yves. Is he okay?" Even Langly looked upset.

"He'll be fine. Probably a bit sore. He gave himself quite a jolt."

"He looks pretty rough," Mulder said. "This might be a job for an ER."

"If you like, but leave me out of your explanations. He really just needs ice and rest and a banana."

"What?" Jimmy looked baffled.

"Potassium," Mulder said. "We used Gatorade at Quantico."

"Electrolytes," Byers nodded. "What was the charge?" he asked Yves.

"Four milliamps. He gave himself a two second shock at most."

Mulder stood back. "Yeah, he should be okay in a while."

Frohike shook his head. "Man. Is he safe to move?"

She opened the door and gestured to Jimmy. "Of course."

"He's really not having a good week," Byers sighed. "Let's get him inside, Jimmy. And someone get the first aid kit."

The big man leaned down, slid his arms under J. Wayne's shoulders and knees, and lifted him out of the seat. "Poor guy. Put him in bed?"

Frohike shrugged. "Yeah." They'd started back toward the hotel. "Then we can get some fucking answers."

"He'll be fine. He was playing with my stun gun."

Byers frowned. "That doesn't seem at all like him."

Frohike scowled. "Just a sec, Yves. Did he _know_ he was playing with a stun gun? Or does it look like something harmless."

She shrugged faintly. "Lipstick. I'm not used to men trying on my cosmetics."

Langly had jogged back to them with the small first aid box. He let out a snort of laughter, immediately slapping his hand over his mouth. When they looked at him, he feigned a cough. "Sorry."

Byers shook his head and turned back to open the door. "Set him down gently, please. When did this happen, Yves, and has he been unconscious all this time?"

"Almost half an hour ago, and no. I think he's actually asleep. He was unconscious for less than a minute. He's been dozing off and on since then."

"Disoriented?"

"Not too much. He had no trouble recognizing me. And his speech is not at all impaired," she said dryly. "He's got a mouth."

Langly snickered. "Can't blame him."

Jimmy straightened up again and disappeared into the next room, returning with the waterproof bags. "I'll go see if there's any ice left. I think we're using it faster than the machine makes it."

"Well, we've got the instant packs." Mel leaned over J. Wayne and gently slapped his cheek. "Wake up, kid. How do you feel?"

He blinked a few times and groaned. "Fucking peachy. Keep her away from me."

Frohike laughed, relieved. "She makes an impression, doesn't she."

"I don't have to let you live, Melvin."

Mulder gave her a look. "If you could be a little more careful with my friends, please?"

Byers was peering closely at J. Wayne. "Did he hit his head?"

"I did not."

"It's just that there's a lump here..."

J. Wayne tried to sit up so he could glare properly. He flailed a bit, limbs like pipe cleaners, and gave up. " _She_ hit my head. Next time, by the way, I'd prefer chloroform. It doesn't fuck up my haircut."

The Gunmen were looking from him to Yves and back as he chewed her out freely. Mulder was just watching the kid, amused. "Not exactly love at first sight, is it?" he stage-whispered to Mel, who shook his head, at a real loss for words.

J. Wayne sighed and flopped gracelessly back to the pillows. "Pardon my fucking rudeness," he huffed.

Langly snickered again, enjoying the show.

Jimmy returned with ice, and Byers wrapped it with a cloth and tucked it against the hand he'd been examining. "Do you think you need a doctor?"

"Probably just a nap and some aspirin."

"I got some Gatorade from the machine," Jimmy said. "They just had the green stuff, but I figured it was better than nothing. I'll get you a straw, okay?" Byers accepted the bottle with a nod of thanks, and Jimmy disappeared into the next room again.

"As long as it's not pineapple or peach, thanks. And if it's at all possible, could we keep the crazies away? I'm happy to let this one heal on its own."

"So I shouldn't call Brother Sweet Gum for you?"

Frohike gave Mulder a shove. "Let's take a pass on that."

Byers handed the kid two aspirins. "Drink all of that, please. Then you can sleep."

"And you can tell us why you're here, Yves." Frohike looked around the room. "Where'd she go? Wait, where'd Jimmy go?"

Langly looked out the window. "Uh, they're leaving."

He put his hands on his hips and glared. "What is it, date night?"

"No," J. Wayne said. "At least I hope not. She needs him to carry a body."

Mulder looked up from where he was thumbing through the hospitality book. "What body?"

"Won't take long." He yawned. "Don't panic, it's not a dead body."

"That's comforting," Langly grouched.

"She's meeting a Man In Black."

"Johnny Cash?"

He blinked at Mulder. "Huh?"

"Never mind," Frohike interrupted. "Get some sleep, kid. Yell if you need anything, we'll leave the door open."

As they waited for dinner to arrive, Frohike paced the room. "Well, if she's trying to get another piece of Fletcher, I'm not gonna stand in her way."

"No shit," Langly agreed. "I just hope Jimmy gets some pictures."

Frohike smiled to himself at a sudden image and then set it aside. "Okay, so about this thing tonight?"

Mulder grinned. "You guys are gonna love this one."

 

**

"Johnny?"

"Hmm?"

"Reassure me, will you?"

"There there," Byers said absently, still scanning the surroundings from where he was sitting.

Langly let out a snort. "Asshole."

Byers turned to look at him, finally. "What? You were looking for something else?"

Langly sighed, half-smiling, and rested his head on Byers' shoulder. "Just tell me this isn't the stupidest thing we've ever done."

"Breaking into a public aquarium to guard an octopus named Betty from alien abduction?" Byers raised his eyebrows politely. "You're finding that stupid?"

"Where do you want me to start?"

Byers smiled. "At least it's a nice night."

Langly snickered. "You always take me to the best places."

"I'm pretty sure this _is_ the stupidest thing we've ever done."

"That's very reassuring, John."

"You should have left it at 'There there'," Byers advised him.

They'd broken into the aquarium almost an hour earlier, around midnight. It was pretty easy, they'd simply disabled the alarms and climbed over the fence on the loading dock. They'd made a quick circuit of the darkened facility, checking that it was empty. Once past the initial alarm, the place was unsurprisingly unsecured, a public building, after all, with a public budget. They'd gone through quietly, black gear blending nicely with the inky interior, each tank like a jewel case under the flashlight, every creature glittering against the velvet of the night. It had been beguiling, and John had resisted the odd urge to stay and explore, but they had work to do.

"Stakeouts suck," Langly complained for probably the zillionth time, as they leaned against the wall behind them. They were sitting on the concrete under an open-sided shelter, in front of the octopus tank. The tank itself was a six foot free-standing cylinder of curved acrylic in which small fish could sometimes be seen among the algae-covered rocks. The octopus had been in a crevice when they'd first peered in, and hadn't moved much, it seemed.

A few yards away to their left was an open arch to the aquarium's centerpiece, a domed construction of glass and beveled concrete, completely surrounded by fish. They'd checked it out, though Langly hadn't been much impressed and had said so.

To the right was a short wall and a fence, which hid part of the loading dock, and the gate they'd come in over.

"There, there," Byers tried again.

"Hey, Johnny," Langly said in the sly voice that always presaged some attempt at public nudity, "I brought a deck of cards. We might as well… play poker."

Byers sighed. "I paid the money back, didn't I? How long are you guys going to hold that over me?" Langly merely chuckled. Embarrassed, Byers stood up and walked to the tank again, peering in at the fishes, hazily lit by the moon beyond them. He switched on the light and spotted the octopus, a slender muddy-colored tentacle uncurling from under a rock, reaching toward him. Amidst a tangle of tentacles, one eye and then the other emerged, and John stepped closer, leaning in to stare. The thing appeared to be looking directly at him, with a startling curiosity in its eyes. It had an expression that was—intelligent, really. John was aware that cephalopods were considered quite smart for animals, but he hadn't been prepared for this level of connection, of… intimacy. The creature was, he surprised himself again, beautiful. Lulled by the incessant slap of waves on piling and seawall, he didn't know how long he stood there in communion with the animal before Langly brought him back to his senses.

"Are you two getting along?" came the sardonic voice of his lover.

John sighed and stepped away, switching off the light and sitting down next to Langly again. He fiddled with the com set they'd agreed to use instead of leaving cell phone signals to be tracked to inside the closed aquarium. He checked in with Mulder, reported no developments, and then leaned against Langly's shoulder. They stayed like that for another twenty minutes or so, muscles beginning to stiffen in the cool night air.

Langly jerked, suddenly, sitting up. "Listen," he said urgently.

Byers did. He couldn't hear anything, and the hair stood up all along his arms. The distant birds were silent. The hum of the machinery around them had stopped, too. Most alarming, he couldn't even hear the waves anymore. "What—"

His voice sounded muffled to him, as though they were themselves under water. He looked at Langly, expecting to see his lover panicking. He wasn't, though. He was sitting with his eyes closed, with the blissful expression he wore while listening to a really good album. Or, Byers realized abruptly, during sex. "Langly!" he hissed. Tried to, anyway. "Langly!" His words were swallowed by the night.

A white light hit the tank from above and wobbled, splitting in all directions. Byers turned to look, watching it steady and briefly light up the entire tank with a pure glow that had nothing to do with anything in the water itself. Then it vanished, leaving only the moonlight again.

The air seemed to get colder and heavier, like a fog rolling in, and yet he could see everything with exceptional clarity. He tried to move, and found he couldn't. He could only stare straight ahead and watch. The octopus was moving, silently, rising towards the surface of the tank so slowly it barely seemed to be swimming at all. Patterns of red danced over its skin, knobs and fleshy bumps rising across its surface. Byers could see every outline of the animal illuminated with pale green fire he first took for phosphorescence. But it wasn't moving even enough to ripple the surface of the water. He tried to turn his head to see if the light was coming from above again, but he still couldn't move. As it floated higher, he saw that its underside was bathed in the same glow.

For some reason Byers found himself absolutely terrified. He'd have been shaking with it if he'd been able to move. The octopus broke the surface of the water without so much as a whisper or a swell. It continued to rise slowly, noiselessly—its body never curving back to the water, as though it were a plastic toy picked up by a stiff tentacle. He'd lost any notion of time, but it seemed to go on forever before the octopus was too high, rising through the night air, for him to see it anymore.

"Beautiful," he heard Langly say softly. Langly moved into his line of vision, ignoring him completely, and stood, his face turning upwards to follow the animal's path. "Beautiful," he whispered again, the word filling Byers' silent world.

The light hit Langly, made his hair glow gold, played off his sharp features. A stray beam hit his glasses, dazzling Byers for a moment. He thought he saw Langly's feet leave the cement path, and the terror overwhelmed him.

His next thought was that it was raining. He found he could move again, but didn't think he could dredge up the energy to do much more than open his eyes, which he did when he heard Langly.

"Johnny," Langly's voice was filled with awe, and Byers realized what he'd mistaken for rain was actually tears—the younger man was holding him carefully, looking down at him, and tears were running down his face. His expression was orgasmic. "They'll bring her back soon," he said, with absolute certainty.

He couldn't imagine who Langly was talking about, and then it came back to him like a rock hidden in the surf and he passed out again.

When he came around, Langly was talking to him, babbling, really, bent over him so their foreheads touched. And—Byers realized, Langly had a hand in his dark jeans, stroking him. Byers shivered with it, still hypersensitive from whatever had happened. The octopus, he remembered, and turned his head to look. It was back—still?—in the tank, its color changing in languid patterns from pale pinks to rich chocolate browns, arms shifting lazily as though nothing had happened.

"They brought her back," Langly said. "They didn't hurt her."

Byers opened his mouth to ask something, but he couldn't even begin to formulate a question. Not that it mattered. Before he could take a breath, Langly dove in to kiss him, ravaging his mouth as though it was the only oxygen he would ever find.

Byers shuddered as a cool breeze whispered across his skin, catching every tiny bead of sweat and making him feel like he'd been dropped in the night ocean. Langly's hands were all over him, burning across his skin as they moved on him, pulling at his clothes and stripping away his ability to think. It seemed there were too many hands on him, a dozen of them, stroking him everywhere at the same time. He moaned once, softly, and Langly caught it with his lips, fingers slipping over his throat to find the vibrations it caused.

Sex, under the influence of this, became a matter of the smallest of movements, of stillness and wind-soft caresses, of slow breaths taken together. Langly's skin was as hot as John's was cold, his mutters as harsh as John's murmurs were soft. In fire and ice, John was left poised on the edge for what had to have been years, every delicate touch suspended between arousal and fulfillment. When Langly came into him finally, he heard a gull's cry and realized it was himself making the noise. Langly surged in and out of him, moving like the tides and John seemed to come completely unmoored, carried along in currents of pleasure.

He'd so often wanted this perfect together moment to go on forever, and now he was getting his wish, drifting in this endless sea of sensations. It was rapturous, and the abyss closed in on him twice more as they moved together. When the end came, he drowned in it.

 

**

Byers woke first. He stared ahead, seeing fish, and trying to work out how he could be underwater. Everything shifted suddenly and he realized he was lying on his back, in the center of a dome of glass and concrete, looking at the lazy, dark movements of fishes in the press of water around it.

His head was hissing, and on reflection he realized it was Mulder, over the communications link. He staggered over and fumbled with the handheld, trying to make sense of what Mulder was saying.

"Salmon, this is Angler. Where are you guys?" The voice was impatient, one in the background approaching panic. Frohike. "Come in. Salmon, Urchin, come in. Shit. Are you guys there? Salmon? Urchin?"

Byers blinked for a few seconds and reoriented himself, or as close to it as he could get. "Uh, Angler?"

"Salmon?"

Byers assessed the likelihood that he was "Urchin". "I—I don't know. Maybe. Where the fuck are we, and what the fuck are we doing here?"

There was quite a pause while Mulder tried to deal with _that_. Byers heard Mulder hissing at Frohike.

He jabbed Langly, sprawled naked on the cement. "Wake up. We've got trouble. A _lot_ of fucking trouble."

Langly rolled onto his side, and opened his eyes. He found himself staring at fish. For a moment he thought he was underwater, and gasped for air. Not the smartest move, but it seemed to work. "Fish," he said.

Byers nodded. "Where the fuck are we?"

"Salmon, Urchin, get the hell out, now."

"The hell out of where?" Byers demanded.

"Christ," Mulder muttered. "Get to the street. Start walking north and we'll pick you up in the park."

"What—?" Langly asked.

"Mulder," Byers muttered. "We're… Fuck, we're in an aquarium."

Langly sat up and brushed his hair out of his face. "Yeah."

Byers looked at him suspiciously. "How the hell did we get here? One of Mulder's goddamned ideas, I bet."

Langly blinked at him. "You don't remember?"

"If I fucking remembered, Richard, I wouldn't have fucking asked, now would I," Byers said nastily, each word carefully enunciated. "Maybe you should lay off the goddamned Twinkies. They're rotting your brain."

Langly's eyes widened in the gloom, but he shook his head. "Stakeout—You don't remember?" Byers glared and he hurried on. "I… don't know why we're naked though."

Byers snorted. "Think about it, shithead. We were fucking. That's pretty clear."

Langly winced at the insult, but it was too weird to deal with. Maybe John had hit his head on something, he just didn't act like this. There was no time to worry about it right now, though. He reached for their clothes. "We'd better get out of here." He looked around and swallowed. "Fish."

"Jesus fucking Christ," Byers snarled as they hastily dressed and shoved the equipment into the bag. "I'm gonna put my foot so far up Mulder's ass I'll be able to pull the shoelaces out of his lying goddamned mouth and strangle him with them. And then I'm gonna squeeze his little pin head until his eyeballs pop out and I can chew them off. And _then_ I'm gonna castrate the motherfucking son of a bitch with a broken light bulb, and if that little bastard Frohike gets in my way, he's _next_." He punctuated this by dropping and kicking the bag into the ocean that lapped quietly off the dock.

Langly stood rooted to the ground in shock, the beam from the flashlight catching his lover's contorted expression. He shivered, more from fear than cold. This… wasn't John. Or maybe it was, but… This was a John he'd never seen more than hints of before, someone his lover kept tightly controlled and concealed. This scared him, this and whatever it was he couldn't remember that had brought this squirming to the surface. "God, John. Are you okay?"

"No, I'm fucking _not_ okay," Byers grabbed his arm hard enough to make bones creak and dragged him past the Exit lights to the service gate. "I'm gonna fucking _kill_ that prick. Why the fuck do we always let that asshole tell us what to do?"

Langly swallowed again, rubbing his arm. "John, you don't… look so good. Are you feeling sick or something?"

"Get your skinny ass over that goddamned gate or I'll throw you over, Blondie."

Langly got his skinny ass over the goddamned gate. Byers climbed over after him, still snarling under his breath. "Which way's north, dammit?"

Langly pointed mutely.

"I need a fucking drink," Byers announced. "A big fucking drink. And then I need to rip Mulder's tiny little dick off and nail it to a fucking whale." With that, he spun around and started walking.

Langly touched his arm and ducked when Byers rounded on him. "Johnny, man, what's gotten into you?"

Byers stared at him for a moment, and slowly lowered his fist.

Langly straightened up cautiously. "You were going the wrong way," he said quietly, an unnatural calm descending on him. "C'mon. I think you're sick."

"I'm not sick, I'm just too fucking sober," Byers muttered, but let himself be pushed along in the right direction.

Frohike and Mulder hadn't just waited, for which Langly was grateful. Not nearly soon enough, keeping one arm around Byers, who continued to swear steadily and walk unsteadily, he saw the van. Mulder got the door open and Langly pushed Byers inside, and then had his hands full trying to keep him off Mulder.

Mulder wasn't helping any. "What the hell happened? You were just supposed to watch and take pictures! How could you have fucked that up?" He probably would have continued on this line, but Byers had both hands around his neck.

"John, Johnny, lay off, okay?" Langly held on for dear life—Mulder's. "Johnny, chill! Mulder, shut up. There's something seriously wrong with him. C'mon, Johnny, don't kill him. He's a federal employee. You'll make us accessories. C'mon, Johnny, let go."

Langly managed to wrestle him, still cursing fluently, to the floor. Mulder sat up, rubbing his neck and gagging.

Frohike, making good time away from downtown, glanced back. "What the hell is going on back there?"

Langly shook his head briefly. "Drive. We got it. Just need to get him—Ow!—calmed down. Johnny, relax. We'll get some nice drugs into you, and everything'll be fine. Don't just sit there, Mulder," he ordered. "Get the first aid kit. Second cabinet on the left under the bench, front of the bottom shelf. The big one in the white case, behind the little red one. The code is 787 641."

The sound of Langly calmly issuing instructions was almost as startling as Byers' elaborate and vicious profanity, and it seemed to pull him from his daze. He crawled to the cabinet, coughing painfully, and found the large kit. He dragged it back and unlocked it, blinking at the contents.

Langly laughed shortly. "The Boy Scout up there stocks it," he said jerking his head toward Frohike. "Find the green tranquilizer cartridge and put it in the injector gun. Light green, okay? You don't have to find a vein or anything, just get it in him. God, he's strong." He glanced at Mulder. "Right. Color-blind. Sorry. Light brown, in your case. With three horizontal white stripes. There are six of them, okay? They say 'Chlorpromazine hydrochloride'. C-H-L-O-R—"

"Yeah," Mulder croaked. He managed to find one and held it up to check the writing in the dim light.

Langly nodded. "That's the one. Make sure it's full, one of those is empty but it keeps getting put back in there for some reason. Then line the arrows up and snap it in, nozzle down. Get it in him." He looked at Mulder, who was still hesitating, and deliberately softened his tone. "Trust me, you can't get it wrong. It's okay, Mulder. It's not gonna hurt him." He put the rest of his energy into twisting Byers' shoulder close enough to Mulder and holding it still, hoping it wouldn't take the man too much longer to make up his mind. An elbow landed in his ribs before he felt a tugging on the sweater and heard the hiss of the injection. Byers' struggles and curses began to fade almost immediately.

Langly leaned over him and mopped at his face gratefully with one hand as the tranquilizer took effect. "It's okay, Johnny. I don't know what happened, but I'm going to find out." He looked up. "Get him a blanket, okay? Last cabinet on the left, under the seat. There's some gray army blankets in there, behind the brown bag, grab a couple, will you?"

Mulder, starting to recover, did as he was told. "What happened?" he asked, his voice hoarse.

Langly shook his head as he pressed carefully at John's skull, looking for injuries. "I don't remember. He doesn't either, he said."

"Is he _drunk_?"

Frohike snorted. Langly shook his head again. Mulder handed over the blankets and watched him spread them in a businesslike way. "No. That was apparently one of the things pissing him off."

"Never seen him that angry." His voice was still rough.

"Me either. Just so you know, you're one of the other things pissing him off, Mulder. I don't know what happened, but try not to lay into him as soon as he comes around, okay?"

"What'd I do?"

Langly sighed. "Not now, Mulder." He reached up and flipped a light on. "How's your throat? Did he hurt you?"

Mulder cleared his throat and winced. "I'm okay. He's a lot stronger than he looks."

Langly laughed, but there wasn't a lot of humor in it. "He's usually not this way. He must be really annoyed with you." He reached across and pressed at a darkening bruise below Mulder's jawline. "Looks like he got you pretty good."

Mulder shook his head. "I'm okay," he said again, his voice less of a croak now.

"You'll survive, I guess," Langly decided, and saw Frohike's expression in the rearview mirror lighten marginally. He ejected the spent cartridge into a garbage bag hanging from the bench and reloaded the injector gun with a fresh one, placing it carefully under one of the elastic straps on the workbench to keep it from sliding off. "As long as he doesn't have another try at you."

Mulder grimaced. "How long will he be out?"

Langly shrugged as he turned back to the first aid kit. "His body mass, that dose, maybe half an hour, but as angry as he was, he might burn it off faster." He held up a small packet. "Mulder, drug allergies?"

Mulder blinked and shook his head. "Me, no," he rasped. He cleared his throat again. "No, why?"

"Good." Langly handed the packet to Mulder, who regarded it suspiciously and then watched as Langly, a man he'd seen eat dinner off of a magazine because there were no clean dishes, started to put everything else neatly away.

Langly flicked another glance at him. "It's just vicodin. Take one if you need to, but only one. If he's like that when he comes around again, I'm going to need you to help."

Frohike paused at a stoplight and looked back. "How is he? Byers?"

Langly shrugged tiredly. "I don't know."

"Is he hurt?"

"It doesn't look like it, but I don't know. I don't remember anything happening to him, but I don't actually remember what _did_ happen. I remember setting up in there, and then… We both woke up, and there were… fish." he shuddered.

"You fell asleep?" Mulder said, irritably, sounding much more normal.

"Mulder, I just told you," Langly said wearily. "I don't remember anything, okay? Something went really wrong in there. And the next thing I know, John's swearing like a trucker, making threats I hope I can forget, and throwing punches."

Frohike drew in a breath, shocked. "He _punched_ you?"

"No." Langly shook his head again. "No. It's okay, Mel. His reflexes are all keyed up. He was walking the wrong way, and I put my hand on his arm, and he came around swinging. It's like he's his evil twin or something." Langly shrugged. "Something went really wrong in there. And I can't remember any of it."

"I think…" Mulder began, and stopped abruptly.

"What?" Langly demanded.

Mulder wouldn't meet his eyes. "He was abducted."

"You fucking what?" Frohike squawked, and then was swerving violently out of the lane of an oncoming SUV.

"Drive or pull over, Mel, okay?" Langly snapped, before turning his attention back to Mulder. "You can't be serious."

"His sweater's inside out," Mulder insisted.

Langly relaxed a little. "That wasn't aliens."

Mulder glared. "You were _supposed_ to be watching, you know."

"Later, Mulder. _Much_ later. And I'm only guessing. I don't remember that part, either."

Despite himself, Mulder almost snickered. "That's gonna hurt his feelings."

Langly shook his head, not rising to the bait. "He doesn't remember either. He doesn't remember any of it."

"Fuck," Frohike said suddenly. "All these damned one-way streets. I think I'm lost."

"Take care of him, okay, Mulder?" Langly moved forward. "Where are we trying to go?"

Frohike shrugged. "I think a hospital would be a good idea. For both of them, really."

"No way—" Langly started, and then stopped. "Hang on." He went back and dug around in a concealed wall panel, sifting through some papers. He grabbed a laptop as he passed by the bench and moved back to the front. "Get us onto I5, if you can."

"North or south?"

"South." He glanced through the windshield, "Keep going south on this road, you'll start to see signs in a couple blocks. Follow them."

Frohike nodded. "We called Jimmy, by the way. He and the kid are on their way to meet us, uh, where we were."

"What for?"

"You missed three check-ins. We were getting ready to break in."

Mulder looked up sharply. "Did you guys trip any alarms?

"No." Langly hesitated. "I don't think so. We'd better call and head them off, just in case. I don't want them walking into the cops." He decided they were probably far enough away from the aquarium to be in a different cell, and pulled his phone out. He got Jimmy and ordered them to go back to the hotel and stay put. Jimmy tried to argue, but Langly repeated his instructions forcefully and Jimmy was meekly agreeing when Langly thought of something. "Find out if Yves has a Mickey Mouse costume, will you? And stay put." He disconnected as Jimmy protested, leaning back to check on John, who appeared to still be out.

As he looked things up on his laptop, he spoke again. "Mulder, did you take a pill?"

"No. I'm fine."

"All right, good. There's a crate to the left of the cabinet where the blankets were."

"Yeah?"

"I need you to be very, very careful when you do this."

Frohike drew in a sharp breath. "Ringo?" he asked uncertainly.

"It's okay, Mel." He made sure he was speaking calmly, he didn't want to stress the agent, but he wanted to make his instructions very clear. "Mulder, move the crate out of the way and reach back into the hole where it was. Use your flashlight. There's a loose piece of the rubber mat on the floor, and if you lift that up, there'll be a metal ring that you need to lift straight up and pull toward you. Inside the recess, there's a tackle box."

Mulder did exactly as he was told. "What do I do with this panel?"

"Set it down behind you. That's not the important part. Mel?"

"I'm gonna pull over."

"No. Just keep going, don't turn or stop or speed up. Pulling over on the freeway will draw attention."

Mel took a deep breath and nodded. "Okay."

Mulder stared at Langly, looking nearly hypnotized. "What next?"

"Make sure you've got a good grip, and then lift out the tackle box very carefully and set it down right beside you. Don't drop it or jar it or bang it around."

Mulder held his breath and did it.

"Great," Langly said soothingly. "You're doing fine."

"What am I—"

"I'll explain later. Behind where the tackle box was, there's a couple of film canisters in a small cardboard box. Pull them out and put the cardboard box back exactly as it was."

"Oh," Mel relaxed slightly.

"Keep going, Mel. Let's hope John doesn't wake up."

"Now... would be a bad time, yes."

"Okay, Mulder, put the tackle box back into the hole, as gently as you can. Make sure it's latched securely before you pick it up again."

Mulder held his breath and set it back under the flooring.

"That's great, you're almost done. Put the metal panel back the same way you took it out, and pull the mat down again. Then put the crate back. Is he waking up?"

He shook his head. "Still out." He handed the canisters to Langly, who opened them and pulled out two rolls of bills, sorting through them.

"Thanks, Mulder. Mel, how much?"

"A little over three thousand bucks."

"That should do it."

He moved forward again. "Right." He glanced at the signs going past. "Okay. In another five minutes or so, we'll near a place called Tukwila, and then we turn onto 518 West and follow it to Des Moines Memorial."

"Isn't there a closer hospital?"

"Des Moines Memorial Drive. We just need the exit." Langly sighed. "Hospitals ask questions and we don't have answers. What John needs is x-rays, so that's what we're going to get him."

"Where are we going then?"

"King Animal Hospital."

There was a moment of silence. Then Mulder spoke up. "You want to take your boyfriend to a vet?"

 

**

Somewhat unfortunately, Byers had started to come around by the time they found the on-call vet. Langly had flatly ordered Mulder to stay in the waiting room, so at least he wasn't violent.

The doctor stared. "I'm a _veterinarian_! I don't _do_ people."

Langly put his hand on the doctor's arm. "Please, sir, this is an emergency, and we have nowhere else to go. He may have injured his head, we're not sure. But he needs help, _your_ help. Please."

Frohike glanced warily at Langly.

"A hospital—" the vet started.

"Sir, please," Langly said politely, urgency in every syllable. "We can pay you. But we can't take him to a hospital. He's undocumented. We both are. I know I shouldn't tell you that, but it's worth anything if you can help him."

Frohike made a choking noise.

The doctor listened to Byers cursing. "From where?" he asked incredulously.

"Canada," Langly said smoothly. "Sir, please." He pressed close to two thousand dollars into the man's hand. The doctor seemed startled when he realized what it was and tried to give it back. Langly shook his head. "Please. Please. We really need your help. _He_ needs your help. I know this isn't what you do, but he's my brother and I'm so worried."

The man looked from Byers to Langly and back again. "Brother?"

"He was adopted very young. He was an orphan. Our parents would have wanted me to take care of him. Please help us. This isn't a police matter, I swear to you. No guns or knives." Langly swiped unself-consciously at what apparently were actual tears. "He saved my life tonight, and I'll never be able to live with myself if something happens to him because of it. He's never acted like this before, and I'm afraid for him."

Frohike, standing behind the doctor, stared at Langly, positive his jaw had dropped through the floor.

The doctor caved. "All right, yes. Bring him through. We can at least check him for head trauma. I'm not sure what we'll do if we find anything, but I can't let someone die in my clinic."

Langly took Byers from Frohike by the arms and walked him along, gently reassuring him and thanking the vet in equal measure.

Eventually Frohike returned to the waiting room through the open door and stared at Mulder. "What—" he started, and then stopped. "What do you make of _that_?"

Mulder shrugged. "Oz Factor, would be my guess. Both of them, I think."

Frohike shook his head. "I don't think we're in Kansas anymore."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Next Up: Caffeine, Conspiracies, and the Fortean Nature of Fishes XIII: They Do Call It The Emerald City After All: In which Grave Secrets Are Revealed, and Byers gets a nickname that may very well haunt him the rest of his life.*

**Author's Note:**

> Next up: Caffeine, Conspiracies, and the Fortean Nature of Fishes II: Flying Saucer Safari: In which we find out more about the trace, Langly gets some help re-establishing his ego, the author's scientific illiteracy makes her beta-readers shudder, plot decisions are made, public figures are libeled, and the lads watch paint dry before engaging in further Entirely Gratuitous Sex.


End file.
